Fate Theosis
by Maximum Minus
Summary: Kariya gets a second chance to win the fourth Holy Grail War, this time with the help of the Watcher class servant. Little does he know, the grail war he stakes his life in is a singularity marked by Chaldea and caught up in the great scale of the Grand Order story which transcends space and time. Fate/Zero cross with F/GO. 1 OC main character servant, 1 OC GO servant.
1. Myth Made

Fire. Pain. Burning. Agony.

Flames clung to Kariya's body, wrapping about his limbs in a flickering, destructive dance, fluttering and fuming with the wind's merciless orchestration. He wanted to breathe, but the coat of flames stole that from him, roaring as it gorged on the oxygen that should have been his. He wanted to see, but the flames brightened in response, feeding off his liquefying skin, blinding him with light born from his flesh.

He wanted to move, but this time it was his body that wouldn't let him. Having fallen off an apartment roof onto cold, unyielding concrete, Kariya's body was a mass of splintered bone and faltering organs held together with the flimsy wrapping of his skin. Even that wrapping would not last under the endless torment of fire. Kariya wondered if he'd split apart into a pile of charred guts or a mass of cooked worms. Better the guts. At least he wouldn't have to witness Zouken's disgusting handiwork then.

Kariya moaned, expelling such defeatist thoughts. He couldn't die. Not now. Not until he had the grail, not until Sakura could smile again, not until he'd wrung Tokiomi's head off his pompous body. All his unfulfilled goals pushed Kariya forward, but he couldn't even muster the strength to writhe. All he could do was lie there, his consciousness turning to ash with the rest of his body.

Light, different from the orange glare of fire, invaded Kariya's sight. Blue light, pale like the moon's glow and just as serene, glittered in front of him, weaving into an orb that floated before him. He shouldn't be able to see anything. His eyes had long since lost their moisture, shriveling in preparation for cremation. Yet this light, this mellow, steady shine of wonder, eased Kariya, dispelling the shadows of pain and agony from his being.

"You," said the orb, projecting a neutral voice devoid of inflection and tone. "Look like you're in trouble. I can fix that. I can give you another chance, another shot at the prize."

A shot of pain popped in Kariya back, feeling like a red hot poker had been drilled into it - the same sensation he felt when the worms opened his undeveloped circuits. He hadn't called on the worms, though. He couldn't spare the energy.

"Feel that? Now we're ready to make a contract, you and I." The orb hovered, inching near Kariya, but staying just outside arm reach, tantalizing him, its tendrils of light thin and hazy like webbing. "I can be your salvation. The shoulder to lean on in failure. The back to follow in victory. Just give me proof of your desire.

Kariya wanted it. He needed it. His whole life was one of lost opportunities, chances he could have grasped if he'd just reached out. Always, every time, he'd been too afraid, had taken his arm back, had suffered for all of it. First with Aoi, then with Sakura, and now – now he wouldn't pull back.

With a scream that sounded more like a dying wheeze, Kariya roused life into his dead body. His arm slid forward, unable to lift off the ground, scraping on the concrete and leaving a trail of mushy skin, blood and charring cloth. Every inch was a mile to Kariya, his arm moving forward at a glacial pace, reaching and reaching for the light that gleamed with salvation.

Breath left his body. Sensation fled his wits, leaving him in the emptiness of death. His pulse spiked, then flatlined.

"Impressive". The orb looked at Kariya's arm, alight with flames like a victory torch, right underneath it. "The contract is sealed. May our partnership be fruitful."

When Kariya came to, he found himself in sitting position, propped against a grime-caked wall in a narrow alleyway. He groaned as he massaged his head, feeling an intense headache pinballing in his skull. His movement set off a chorus of motion for the gutter's denizens, sending rats fleeing to cover and bugs buzzing away in alarm. Unfortunately, those weren't the only things he alerted.

Danger.

Alert coursed throughout Kariya's body like electricity, tensing all of his muscles and pounding awareness into every inch of his nervous system. The headache cleared out in an instant, vanquished by the adrenaline that coursed through Kariya's body in a raging torrent. His hairs stood on end, his senses sharpened by the whetstone of survival.

He felt it coming. Kariya swerved his head to the right. The sharp crack of steel splitting apart concrete sounded beside him, right where his head had been. With the peripheral vision of his left eye, Kariya saw a cross shaped hilt embedded into the wall. He touched his left brow. He realized he could see with his left eye.

It had been so long since the worms had eaten away that eye's sight, so long since he'd lost all feeling on the left side of his face. His hand reached down and felt his face. The network of bulging capillaries and veins that had streaked his deadened face were less apparent, now feeling more like little bumps. The fact that he could even feel that side of his face was a miracle, but Kariya had no time to ponder it.

Kariya stood up, taking slow, measured steps backwards. His limp was gone. The pain was there, lingering in every muscle movement of his right leg, but it wasn't numbness. As long as it was pain, Kariya could push through it, but if it was numbness, all he could do was accept it. He saw a black blur, darker than the night but just as ominous, approaching and raised his arms in a rudimentary guard.

A fist, flying right past Kariya's guard, slammed into his stomach. A resounding crack, like wood being chipped, exploded from the blow. Kariya flew back several meters, splashing on a puddle of stagnant, filth ridden rainwater as he lay gasping for air.

Kotomine Kirei looked down at Kariya, and then at his extended fist, smoking like it was a fired gun. In terms of firepower, it might as well have been a gun. He had expected to hit flesh, soft and yielding, but it felt like he had struck steel instead. His muscles, capable of tensing into an iron armor, hadn't been coiled for the unexpected resistance.

As a result, Kirei found himself staring at a reddened hand, the beginnings of bruises rearing their black and ugly heads around his knuckles. Kariya's basic guard had protected his head and heart, leaving Kirei to try and punch a hole straight through the chest.

Kariya's breaths, loud and frequent as they tried to recover the air that Kirei's fist had pummeled out, attested to Kirei's failure.

Kariya scrambled to get back on his feet, his body splashing about in the scummy pool. Every second on the ground meant being one step closer to death. He stood for a second before his knees gave in, the pain in his stomach dominating all of his senses, chaining him to the ground like a prisoner bound for execution.

The Executor stepped forward, then stopped with his fists raised. Kariya saw the back of a figure, impossibly tall and lean, step in front of him, blocking his vision. Black dominated the figure's color palette, filling in its attire which consisted entirely of robes, wrappings, and a neat top hat, all of which clung to it like skin. It would have been no exaggeration to call the figure a walking shadow.

A raspy voice, undercut with throaty rattling, made the figure sound as if each word was its dying will.

"I wonder, has a Master ever won against a Servant before?"

Kirei was the one to step back now. He had answered that question in his head before it was asked. He turned his back and sprinted away into the concealing cover of night.

"And you are my Master," said the figure, turning to Kariya, extending a hand clawed and covered with black bandages. Kariya saw its face, or lack of one thereof. All he saw was a vaguely humanoid facial shape shrouded in a hazy, misty darkness that reminded Kariya of Lancelot's armor. Even thinking of Lancelot brought the pain of defeat again, but he couldn't dwell on it now.

Kariya took the hand and raised himself up, feeling not the softness of cloth, but instead a metallic, cold hardness, like he was grabbing onto a block of iron instead. The figure's hand slithered from Kariya's grasp, retreating to its side. Kariya cocked his head, furrowed his brows, and opened his mouth.

A bony finger landed on Kariya's lips, requesting silence. The figure continued speaking.

"Questions are boring, and take time. Answers, too, come in time, and time is earned, not experienced. Quick, come!"

The shadow whisked past Kariya, blending into the darkness cast by the alleyway's looming walls. It did not walk. Its feet, if it had any, could not be seen under its robes, and so it appeared that the being slid, or perhaps hovered, across the ground.

And quickly too. Kariya tailed it, but the thing moved far faster than a human, its stick-like frame sliding and twisting through urban sprawl like a panther roaming a jungle. It zoomed forward, its shadowy frame blending into the night, posing the possibility that if Kariya slowed down even for a second, he would lose sight of it completely. Kariya ran and ran, chasing that blackened back, snaking through a maze of alleyways, abandoned streets, and shady, shoddy high-rise buildings.

They stopped in front of a manhole. The figure pointed to it.

"If you would be so kind as to open it, my dear master."

Kariya nodded, his confusion leaving him questioning but his instincts bidding him obedient. He dug his fingers into the manhole's sides and pulled. He pulled too hard, sending himself reeling back with the manhole teetering in his grasp. It had been too easy to pull the thing out.

The last time he'd tried was during the warehouse battle, when he needed safe cover from other masters. Back then, it had taken him considerable effort, leaving his arms, atrophied by worms, aching with pain. Now, the manhole was as light as paper, wrenched away with no more effort than lifting a pencil.

Kariya dropped the manhole in curiosity, and heard a dull, heavy thonk as its metal circumference struck asphalt road. It was evident that the manhole still weighed around the same as the one Kariya had pulled up before. There was no doubt about it, he'd grown physically stronger.

"That won't do!" exclaimed the figure in a hushed but urgent voice. "There may still be enemies, my master. Why make such, such _frivolous_ sounds? Quick, follow me."

The figure slid into the hole leading into the sewers, almost disappearing as it blended into the underbelly of the city.

"Close the entranceway when you come in," said the figure as it waited for Kariya, its shadow wrought face staring straight at him from below. Kariya followed, dropping into the sewers and putting the manhole back into place, shutting off the pittance of light that the streetlamps aboveground cast, leaving him in raw, thick darkness.

"Oh, pardon me, I hadn't figured that you'd keep such primitive sight."

Kariya felt the tip of a claw prick his forehead, and he drew back in alarm. He stopped in surprise when he saw – saw through the darkness so packed that average human vision couldn't have punched even an inch through it. There was no color in his vision, but there was no doubt that it was clear, similar to the night vision you could get from hi-tech goggles. He could see the contours and outlines of the pathway he stood upon, the stream of human waste that flowed beside it, and another pathway across the stream that flanked it.

"So, how about it? Like it?" queried the shadow, pleased with its performance.

Kariya breathed through his mouth, evading the pungent stench of the sewers as best as he could. When he spoke, his voice echoed, ringing in the closed surface, reaching far and wide through Mion's sewage system. He voiced his confusion.

"How?" asked Kariya, rubbing his stomach only to notice that both pain and wound were gone.

"Now that's a demanding question," responded the shadow, clapping its hands together in excitement, self-satisfaction and pride oozing from its demeanor. "As the Watcher class servant, it is my utmost duty to refine you, my master, into something better, something perfect. You are witnessing the fruits of my labor."

"Then, what happened to Berserker?" Kariya tasted the disgusting flavor of defeat again, recalling how Berserker had been cornered by Archer in an aerial fight. The taste was made unbearable when he remembered Tokiomi's duty twisted face, contorted with the insanity of a magus' self-righteousness.

He spat into the sewage, where defeat belonged.

"Your past servant?" Watcher put its hand over its heart in a consoling manner. "I'm afraid to say that he is no more. Gone. Skewered by Archer, left to rot underwater - oh how disastrous an end for a knight blessed by a lake!" Watcher parted his hand from his chest and flourished it upwards, lamenting Berserker's death with theatric poise. "But do not be disheartened, my lovely master, for I am here to guide you, to let you take the grail with your own hands. Berserker may be gone, but you shall more than honor his memory as the new Berserker!"

Kariya scratched his white hair. "The new Berserker?"

"Yes!" Watcher bowed. "I pledge on the honor of my class that I will fashion you into the finest Berserker that time and space has ever seen."

"That didn't answer my question."

Watcher ignored him. "But first, every servant, Berserker or not, needs a symbol to shine with, a tool to carve a legend with. Tell me, my beloved master, do you enjoy swords?"

"I..." Kariya didn't know how to continue. He wondered if there was even a point, it didn't seem like his new servant listened to him.

"Good!" exclaimed Watcher as it reached its hand into the folds of its robes, drawing out a sword. It appeared to be an European long sword with a blade forged from ashen grey steel. Its cross guard was of solid gold patterned with an ink blot of black, and its handle held a leathery dark gleam. Most prominent about the blade was not its steel nor its masterful construction, but rather a gold holding piece welded to the bottom of the handle. Within the fingers of gold was an orb, pink and pearl-like, that radiated a calming, almost angelic presence. "While you were resting, I fished this from the river. Archer just threw this wonderful tool away, can you believe it? I hope you will take better care of it."

Kariya stepped back as Watcher practically thrust the sword at him, bidding him to take it.

"I don't know how to use a sword" was the answer. Kariya had a pre-school level of education in Magecraft, but even he understood the sword was mystical in nature. Despite the promise of power the sword gave, he figured it would be more useful in the hands of a real servant, like Watcher.

Watcher shook his head, as if reading Kariya's thoughts. "The Watcher class lets you achieve your own potential. It has all the tools in the world for that, but in exchange it has no tools for itself. I cannot wield a sword, I cannot hope to damage a servant that is not comatose, and it is likely that even a Master can best me under some circumstances."

Kariya was used to having worms scrape his insides clean, organs and bones alike, for the tiniest smidgen of Tokiomi's magical ability. He judged that this tradeoff was acceptable.

"If I'm going to be a Servant, if that's even possible, then will this sword be my Noble Phantasm?"

Watcher waved the sword even closer to Kariya. "Yes. It will be proof of your legend, isn't it wonderful?"

Kariya had more questions, firing them off with eagerness. "Didn't you just pick this up from the river? How can this even be called mine? Isn't this still Archer's? What about my last question – can I even use this?"

Lancelot had never chosen to tone down his mad enhancement, so Kariya had only himself to talk to throughout the grail war. It was heartening, if a bit strange, to have something to talk to, even if the discussion seemed one-sided.

"Heroes do not question, they believe. Take it, and believe."

Perhaps Lancelot was the better companion. At least the mad knight was straightforward in ignoring Kariya. Shrugging in defeat, Kariya took the sword, holding it in one hand, then the other, getting a feel of its weight and effect on his balance. Despite the blade's appearance, it was as easy to wave around as a stick. Kariya was unsure whether that was a product of his new strength, or whether that was a property of the sword.

Kariya felt danger again. It was a new sensation, this feeling. He wasn't a stranger to his survival instincts, having courted them when he burned alive against Tokiomi and when the worms made a meal of his innards. But this was different. He wasn't reacting, he was feeling beforehand, like how you could feel the heavy, tense moments before a lightning strike.

Kariya turned, knuckles whitening as he gripped the sword handle with both hands.


	2. Hundred Faced Labor

Yet another dagger flew towards Kariya, shockwaves gathering at its tip as it strained to surpass the sound barrier. Kariya had already thrown himself to his side, pressing up against the sewer's walls as the dagger zipped by him, disappearing into the depths of the sewers, out of sight within seconds. Kariya's heart beat a mile a minute: if he hadn't predicted that dagger, there was no doubt that he would have steel biting into his brain.

Watcher placed a hand on Kariya's shoulder, squeezing it.

"Careful, my friend. That is no mere human."

As if confirming Watcher's words, a man materialized a dozen meters away from Kariya. He was stooped like a hunchback, with a thin, hunger ridden body that showed more bone than muscle. Dressed in a tattered cloak of black and donning an ivory white skull mask, there was no doubt as to who this was.

"Assassin?" wondered Kariya, his eyes squinting in confusion while his hands gripped the sword ever tighter. Assassin had died twice over; first in its advance against the Tohsaka mansion, then in the banquet of kings when they as a collective were crushed underfoot by Rider.

Assassin was supposed to be dead. Confirmed dead, not like the ruse Kirei had wanted to play by sacrificing one to Archer.

Kariya had no time for confusion. The Assassin dashed forward, its hunched back belying a bestial agility as it weaved from side to side, preventing Kariya from taking clear aim at it with the blade.

All Kariya could do was retreat, his eyes whisking from one corner of the sewers to the other as they struggled to hone in on Assassin's darting form. From his peripheral vision, Kariya saw Watcher dematerializing, and he knew he was alone in this fight.

That moment of focus on Watcher proved almost fatal.

Assassin's face perked up as he saw Kariya's eyes make the tiniest of movements away from him, and he sprinted forward, putting all his strength into his legs, propelling him towards Kariya like a seeker missile. Kariya let out a surprised grunt as he tried warding away Assassin, swinging his sword in a wide, clumsy arc, like he was waving around a club instead of a refined cutting edge.

Kariya grimaced as Assassin dodged with supreme efficiency, letting his untrained blow sail an inch over Assassin's head. That grimace morphed into panic as he saw Assassin, now right in front of him and within his guard, brandish a dagger, pulling it back to gather the energy needed for ending his life.

Kariya raised his sword overhead. This was all or nothing. Assassin was fast like a spider, skittering about with agility he could never match. Even if Kariya dodged this blow, Assassin would dance around him, picking his untrained body apart piecemeal with that cruel, curved dagger. He would take the hit and hammer the sword down, ensuring a hit on Assassin at the cost of possible mortal injury.

Pain spiked at Kariya's left side, like someone had slugged him with a baseball bat. He saw Assassin's dagger caught in his skin. The dagger's edge had cut into Kariya for certain, but it's teeth only sank in a few centimeters, as if Assassin had slashed at a block of reinforced titanium instead. Assassin tried pulling the dagger back but found it embedded, trapped in the iron hard folds of Kariya's split skin.

Kariya saw his chance. Letting adrenaline battle the pain, he focused his strength on his attack, screaming as he swung the sword down. The noble phantasm grade sword met no resistance as it slid through Assassin, splitting him apart from shoulder to navel.

The two halves of Asassin's body slumped to the ground, with the half holding the dagger, still stuck in Kariya's side, trailing him as he stepped back. Kariya breathed hard, exhaling the remnants of his battle excitement.

The dagger popped out of Kariya's side, the muscle fibers knitting together and pushing the foreign steel out. He saw both halves of Assassin's body in clear detail now, and noticed dark matter wreathing it. No blood had come from the wound, and it appeared that solid darkness filled in where organs should have spilled out.

Assassin had been difficult to perceive beforehand, what with him flying around like a mad dervish, but now it was quite apparent: there was a shadowy coating wreathing Assassin, similar to the one Watcher projected.

Kariya felt Watcher's hand pat his back.

"Splendid!" exclaimed Watcher as it materialized. "You've exceeded my expectations. You will make a fine Berserker indeed."

Kariya was too confused to consider congratulations. He pointed at Assassin's body, now fading away into particles of black, with his sword.

"What is he? That didn't feel like a servant, or else my master's vision would have picked up his parameters."

Watcher stroked its chin for a few seconds, contemplating.

"My esteemed Master, how much magecraft do you know?"

"Almost none. I don't plan on learning that disgusting crap either."

"Excellent," said Watcher, heightening Kariya's confusion.

"What do you mean 'excellent'?"

Watcher ignored him, continuing its previous line of thought.

"Assassin was a spiritual body of low caliber. A wraith more-so than a heroic spirit," said Watcher, shaking its head in exaggerated pity, "Due to its weaker status, Assassin is more liable to become a cursed spirit that roams around as a vengeful specter. My hypothesis is that Assassin is motivated with vengeance against masters, considering how wrongly it was betrayed."

Kariya nodded, not knowing the technical details behind the explanation but feeling that it made sense anyhow.

Watcher clenched Kariya's shoulder, its claws almost cutting through his clothes. "Master, I'm afraid your labor does not end here."

Kariya drew his sword again, aiming the bladepoint into the impenetrable darkness of the sewers. His eyes, adjusted to the darkness, could still see nothing: only the endless length of the sewers thinning out into an ominous vanishing point.

His sight was useless, especially considering that Assassin likely kept some form of presence concealment even as a wraith. He had to call on his instincts, sharpened like those of a beast's, instead.

They called, sending a shiver down his spine as his body reacted before his thoughts could catch up.

Kariya dropped his sword and rolled, not willing to risk the possibility of skewering himself. Two daggers whistled overhead. He kept his eyes focused in front of him while his right arm drew back to grab the sword again.

Two Assassins materialized, knitting themselves together with the fabric of the sewer's darkness. They were male assassins, small in stature and youthful in figure. They appeared to be teenagers, but the daggers gleaming in their hands were far from innocent.

"Good luck," said Watcher, as it faded away.

Kariya exhaled, his breath dragging out. He'd need that luck. He imagined pain blossoming within him, and triggered his circuits - the worms. The vermin awoke in response, feasting on his flesh and producing magical energy. He felt a burning spread through his body, scorching him like fire.

The pain didn't slow him down. It even felt comfortable, in a way, shouldering that familiar burden. Gave him focus, reminded him of his limited time, and how much he had to do. Most importantly, it was a symbol of how much he had sacrificed, and how far he was still willing to go.

Two more daggers shot forward. Kariya took a step back and slashed his sword in front of him, managing to knock away one dagger, which performed wild spins in the air as it nailed into the sewer ceiling. The other dagger cut into Kariya's right shoulder with a dull clang, digging in a few inches before muscle fiber, strong like spider silk, stopped the weapon.

Kariya held his breath, reigning in a cry of pain. Despite the dagger being impotent as a cutting weapon, it was still thrown with bullet-like force. The raw impact of the steel wracked Kariya's shoulder with throbbing pangs of pain.

He swallowed down his agony and charged, knowing that he couldn't make this a battle of range. Not yet at least. When Kariya awakened his crest worms, he also called for his battle worms. They would arrive sooner or later, slithering through the network of crevices and pipelines in the sewers - he had to survive until then.

Kariya slashed at one of the Assassins, his whole body lunging forward as he put too much strength in the attack. The Assassin cartwheeled backwards, evading the lethal steel with lithe poise. The other Assassin, positioned behind Kariya, took a dagger in both hands and tried to ram it into Kariya's back, aiming to sever his spine.

Kariya foresaw this and turned his body ever so slightly, causing the dagger to pierce in a few centimeters aside of the spine. Feeling chilling steel sink into his burning flesh, he channeled a cry of pain into a grunt of exertion, twisting to pry Assassin off his back and swiveled to face the backstabber, slashing his sword as he did so.

His blade didn't meet its mark, only another taunting acrobatic maneuver as the Assassin danced away, leaving the dagger protruding from his back. The two killers were now weaponless, their daggers tacked onto Kariya's body. He gripped the blade with both hands and circled round and round, keeping tabs on each Assassin.

The two Assassins followed his dance, circling around him from the back and front, like they were hunting a cornered beast. Kariya managed a smile and counted the seconds the fools wasted.

One...

Two...

Three...

Four...

Both Assassins charged in synch, knowing that Kariya could only deal with one. His smile widened into a grin, almost manic, as he saw his plans fall into place. He dashed forward, meeting only one of the Assassins with a reckless abandon.

Kariya saw the Assassin in front of him halt its offense, assuming a guard. Meanwhile, the Assassin behind Kariya sped up, its footsteps producing a rapid staccato on the stone steps of the sewer.

He kept charging.

The Assassin in front of him was bait, no doubt. The other Assassin would pluck the daggers stuck to Kariya while he, with his rough, amateurish movements, would never have a chance of striking down the defensive Assassin.

But Kariya had faith. Faith in himself, and, though he hated to admit it, faith in the familiars Matou Zouken had given him. After all, he had shared his body with them. They were of his own flesh and blood, and were just as familiar.

Kariya thrust his sword forward, aiming to knock the defensive Assassin's head off. The Assassin bent backwards, dodging the blade, the tip of its head almost touching the stony ground. Kariya had missed, as expected, but his attention was not on his wayward blade.

"Now!" he screamed, the crest worms in his body writhing as they processed and expelled magical energy like miniature generators. The second Assassin, now almost right behind Kariya, stopped for a second, surprised at this outburst.

That second proved to be one too long. Worms hiding in the walls, hiding under the sewage, hiding in the ceiling - they all squeezed out of their hiding places and morphed into flying beetles that swarmed the Assassin behind Kariya in a cloud of hunger.

The beetles, as large as house cats, white like metal with carapaces just as hard, tore at Assassin with all they had. Their mandibles, scythed so as to make even death proud, and their stingers, elongated and bladed like axes, butchered the Assassin in seconds, not even leaving time for screams.

A few rags, wafting around in the thick, methane rich gases of the sewers, were all that remained of the wraith. Kariya's breathing was like a metronome set to max speed. His veins and capillaries bulged again, some popping and spurting little jet streams of blood from his face.

Kariya swung with even less precision than before, trying to cleave the remaining Assassin in two. The Assassin kept its composure, sidestepping the attack, weighed down with a pain fueled rage, with ease. Kariya kept pressing the offense, loosing a barrage of blows that went wide, gouging scars into the ground and walls as he missed, then missed again.

The adrenaline poisoning Kariya's veins and the pain bursting from his crest worms made an intoxicating brew, fogging Kariya's higher judgement and descending him into a rabid bloodlust, leaving him moving forward with the only thoughts that gave his life substance - the thoughts inscribed in the foundation of his existence.

He needed to save Sakura and Aoi.

For that, he needed the grail.

For that, he needed to survive.

For that, he needed to kill.

Sensing their master's desires, the beetles swarmed forward. The remaining Assassin, in between dodging motions, saw the swarm approaching and stopped, accepting his fate. Kariya's sword skewered through the Assassin's chest, pushing past muscle and bone like a flaming knife through paper.

The swarm cleaned up the rest, eating away Assassin's body like a biblical plague of locusts. Kariya stabbed his sword into the ground and rested both hands on the hilt, leaning his weight on the sword to gain his breath. Blood trickled from his face, flowing from ruined blood vessels. He looked down as droplets of sweat and blood pattered on the stone floor, sometimes mixing into little puddles of thinning red.

Kariya laughed between tired breaths. He had managed to defeat Servants. Well, something close. Despite the fact that Assassin already had to split its power into close to a hundred bodies, a negative made worse by them weakening into wraiths, it was still an achievement to defeat not one, but three of them.

For the first time, Kariya felt powerful. It had been his own hands that had swung the sword, felled his enemies, and pushed him a step closer to his goals.

Kariya celebrated too early.

A fist manifested in front of Kariya, and despite his instincts warning him, his feet were too leaden with exhaustion to react in time. The fist, clothed in the signature black of the Hassan, smashed into his face, shattering the hardened skin like porcelain under a hammer.

Kariya whirled backwards, his grip on the sword, stuck in the ground like a stake, prying apart. He cupped his face in anguish, screaming as blood rained from his shattered skin and blood vessels, sifting through his fingers like streams of sand.

An Assassin stepped forward, blocking Kariya's path to his blade. Kariya saw through the gaps in his fingers that this Assassin was different from the others. It was a walking fortress of muscle, with gigantic arms grossly disproportionate with the rest of its body.

Kariya struggled to stand, pressing a hand to his face, trying to keep it from falling apart. Countless cracks lined with red blood streaked his face, with chips of skin dropping through his hand and onto the ground, making clinking sounds as steely skin hit stone.

The pain was enormous, but it fueled Kariya, knocking his battle instincts back into gear. He couldn't afford to take another hit. Another one might actually split him apart. Sensing their master's danger, the insects gathered around him, forming a chitin phalanx.

The Assassin jumped forward, clasping its hands, as massive and deadly as bear paws, together to hammer down on Kariya's head. Kariya felt the cracks in his face sealing, one by one, so he tried stalling for his healing. Beetles buzzed into formation, weaving into a tight shield of bodies that intercepted Assassin's blow.

A loud squelch followed as Assassin's hands crushed almost half of Kariya's swarm. A puddle of green insect blood splashed onto the floor, broken shards of white carapace littering the expanding pool of lime. Kariya's breath cut into short gasps, pain from his overworked circuits stealing away even the luxury of full breaths.

Kariya took his hand from his face, now healed, and saw the glint of his sword shining behind Assassin's blockade of a body. He ordered the remains of his swarm to attack the Assassin while he leaped across the stream of sewage, landing onto the other side's pathway.

The cloud of beetles, much thinner than before, raged around Assassin, gouging out deep cuts in its body by the dozen. Kariya ran forward, hoping to reach the sword while Assassin was occupied.

His hopes crashed along with his body as Assassin ignored the beetles and tackled Kariya, squashing him like a bug along the sewer's wall. He heard his body breaking apart as both his skin and bones shattered like glass. He wanted to scream, but only a weak gurgle, tinged with blood, escaped from his lips, his lungs punctured by shattered ribs.

His consciousness shook. His vision darkened around the edges, and he focused to keep himself awake. The adrenaline barreling through his veins was not enough to fight this level of pain, but he thanked it. It was the pain that held his consciousness hanging by an edge thinner than a strand of cobweb.

He couldn't move. There were no bones to move with. He felt Assassin's broad hand circle around his neck and lift his limp body up. He stared down at Assassin's skull mask, an expressionless face that promised only death. Beetles pecked at Assassin, but his huge body, far more durable than that of the other Hassan, had more than enough flesh to spare.

Kariya fought back, willing his body to heal before Assassin's spare fist ground his head into paste. By this point, Kariya was familiar enough with his instincts to know that they would not be so impolite as to not tell him of impending death.

He trusted his instincts more than his mind, they had saved him more times after all. He didn't just think he could survive, he knew.

He believed. Like a hero.

Watcher's voice echoed in his head.

"Superb! Taking my advice already! For your belief, here is the next step of your evolution: a skill!"

Kariya blinked in confusion.

Asasssin tightened its grip on Kariya, squeezing out his breath. The giant's other fist cocked, readying to loose the final blow. Kariya knew, no, felt what to do. His mind didn't understand how he would use his skill, but his body did.

Assassin's fist, so large that it shadowed over Kariya's whole head, sailed forward. Kariya blocked it with both hands. His arms, which were moments before loose piles of muscle and ground up bone, had recovered, stopping the gargantuan fist without giving up an inch.

Kariya grit his teeth, exerting strength into his hands. He crushed Assassin's fist, compacting it into a shriveled black pulp no larger than a tennis ball. Assassin dropped Kariya, backing up as it stared at its mangled fist with wonder.

Kariya slumped on the ground, the rest of his body still a broken mess. Now free of that brutish, choking grip, he inhaled vast gulps of air.

Monstrous Strength. An useful ability to draw a last spurt of strength with, but at the cost of -

Kariya looked down at his hands. They were covered in a black, carapace -like armor, segmented where the finger joints were. His nails were elongated, curved like harvesting sickles. His hands were wider and broader, and his fingers were longer and thicker, more suited to crushing and clawing.

Kariya felt his muscles knitting together, his splintered bones attaching, his shattered skin patching up, and he stood up, a heavy sway in his movements. Assassin took the erratic movements as weakness and closed in again, its hulking body looming over Kariya as it raised a single fist.

Kariya couldn't keep his balance, so he didn't try to. He put his strength into his legs and leaped right towards Assassin's barrel-like chest. He thrust his arms forward, and his clawed hands sunk into Assassin's chest, sinking in almost elbow deep.

Assassin froze, its spiritual core destroyed, prevented from mustering enough energy to bring that fist down. Kariya pulled his arms from Assassin's chest with a sickening schlick. Assassin fell over backwards, into the sewage stream. Its body floated atop the human waste, the current driving it away as its body faded into black particles.

Kariya trembled as he stood, still uncomfortable with his repaired body. His instincts flared again, pricking his skin and jolting his consciousness alert. He sighed, knowing what was to come.

Another Assassin materialized, this time a young woman,

Then another, a young man.

Then another.

Then another.

More and more until all Kariya could see were Assassins, all cloaked in that mocking, waving shroud of black. He closed his eyes, keeping the image of the future, one where his loved ones didn't suffer, burning, fueling his will to push on.

The Assassins were the ones to swarm now, the sea of darkness fogged bodies swallowing up Kariya's lonesome, pale figure.


	3. Knight Party

Author's Note:

Hey there, sorry for being silent the first two chapters around. This chapter will focus on the Grand Order aspect of the story, so there's going to be a huge shift in point of view. The main point of views will likely be Kariya and Ritsuka, just as a heads up for future chapters. I hope you enjoy, and please feel free to tell me anything I should improve on through either reviews or PMs.

 **Abandoned Fact** ory **: Outskirts of Shinto**

Shinto as a city was one that embraced the future, evolving past its bulky industrial framework into a highly developed commercial center with lean, sleek high rise buildings. Its evolution had left vestigial structures, remnants of its factory days, dotting its outskirts. One of these, an abandoned factory, a hulking shell of rusting metal - the very image of a past left forgotten, was the proud and fitting host of a scene befitting the legends of the past.

The Saber class servant, Artoria Pendragon, clashed with the Lancer class servant, Diarmuid Ua Duibhne. Golden sword and crimson spear crossed and crossed, sending eruptions of sparks and gales of wind that ravaged the factory courtyard, ripping holes in rusting shipping containers and stripping layers of concrete off the ground.

The battle was the epitome of martial prowess. Every single exchange of blows, so numerous as to number in the hundreds, was calculated with a mix of instincts, battle sense, and millisecond-to-millisecond planning. Though these Servants represented the zenith of humanity, their skill was such that they passed into the realm of the inhuman. Irisviel Von Einzbern bore witness to this miraculous spectacle, still awed by the incredible display of strength despite it not being her first time seeing a battle between Servants.

Right next door to this wondrous piece of the past was a brutal negotiation led with the cold, efficient threats of modern weaponry. Emiya Kiritsugu placed a firm finger on the trigger of his assault rifle, its barrel pointed down at Sola-Ui's face. Kayneth El Melloi trembled as he read the terms of his Geass scroll, his once proud gaze reduced to a frantic, blinking stare.

Kiritsugu looked at Kayneth with steady, almost deadened eyes, like he was performing manual labor. This whole ordeal might as well have been as predictable as manual labor. He was the type of person to plan out his day minute to minute - the pitiable scene unfolding in front of him was just another planned minute out of 1440 in a day.

Today, however, was not a day that would fall in line.

Artoria and Diarmuid both halted, their respective weapons frozen mid swing. They both shot knowing glances at each other, and stepped back.

"Sorry Saber, but it looks like you're wrong," said Diarmuid, a coy smile playing on his lips. "We have an uninvited guest for our duel."

Artoria planted her blade into the ground. "That seems to be the case. Rider has expended too much of his reserves by deploying his noble phantasm. Berserker would not be moving at such a leisurely pace."

Diarmuid sighed. "Then that only leaves Archer."

Artoria nodded, her battle joyed expression now a frown. "That would be so."

A Servant materialized atop a factory roof overlooking both Diarmuid and Artoria. The two focused their attention at the spiritual particles, red and black, that swirled around in a shimmering vortex that eventually shaped into-

"Sir...Tristan?" asked Artoria, her voice trembling.

Tristan bowed, his long red hair flowing from his head like stage curtains.

"My king," he said, straightening himself and jumping down from the roof.

Diarmuid looked at Artoria, then at Tristan, questioning oozing from his furrowed brows.

"There should only be seven servants. Who are you?"

Tristan looked at Diarmuid, or rather, faced him, as his eyes were closed.

"I am, as you said, an Archer class servant."

Diarmuid lowered into his stance, his spear point gleaming at Tristan's face.

"Don't be smart with me. Saber, do you know this man?"

Artoria took a step back, her grip loosening from Excalibur.

"Sir Tristan," she said, shock widening her eyes, "How?"

Tristan ignored her question. "My king, why do you seek the grail?"

Artoria took another step back, her mouth open like someone who had seen the sky turn red.

"I...I wish for-" She stopped, shaking her head and regaining her senses. "No, this is impossible. A trick. Perhaps an illusion - I would not put it above Archer to taunt me in such a way with a treasure in his Noble Phantasm."

Diarmuid thrust his spear, and Tristan had to twist his body to the side, letting the crimson fang brush past his hair, sending strands of red floating in the wind. Tristan stepped back, his closed eyes aimed at Diarmuid.

"I agree," said Diarmuid. "There is no possible way for another Servant to be in this ritual. Gae Dearg dispels such illusions - one strike and I can shatter this farce."

Tristan shook his head in a slow, pained manner, his lips twisted in a frown.

"Ah, to see you ignore reality. Nothing has changed since that time."

An incomprehensible hybrid between bow and harp materialized in Tristan's hands, solidifying from a sparkling cloud of silver energy.

Diarmuid pressed his attack, lunging while thrusting, his spear bursting towards Tristan like a bullet. Tristan took a finger and ran it down the strings of his harp, letting out a rising medley of tones that struck doubt in Artoria's heart.

Diarmuid's heightened battle perception, aptly encompassed in his Eye of the Mind skill, let him foresee the danger. He halted the charge, his feet leaving two smoking trails as he braked, and flipped backwards, leaving a dozen meter distance between himself and Tristan. Sharp thwaps, harsh and cutting, pierced the air, contrasting with the beautiful melodies that had birthed them. Slices of pressurized wind whirled around where Diarmuid had been, cutting apart the concrete ground in a bladed maelstrom.

"So," said Tristan, "Do you still believe that I am some mere illusion, my king? Or has it been that long since I chose to stop playing my music for you?"

Diarmuid noticed the flow of combat ebbing, and stuck the butt end of his spear into the ground, reserving himself to watch how the King of Knights he so respected conducted herself around a subject.

Atoria reclaimed the steps she'd taken back under the spell of surprise. "Sir Tristan, if that is truly you and not some fiendish trick, then I welcome your return with open arms."

Tristan massaged his shut eyes with a frustrated vigor, like he was a teacher who had to answer the same question a dozen times over. Nothing had changed about her, even now she would accept him, even when he had turned his back on her.

Artoria continued, however, taking her sword and pulling it from the ground.

"However, even though it pains me to say this to one of my former knights, if you are here for the grail-" She pointed the blade at Tristan, its golden steel blazing with threat. "Then we are fated to speak with our weapons."

Tristan froze up like he'd been stopped in time, his hand still covering his eyes. His hand lowered just an inch, revealing a single open eye, clear almost like glass, staring with a gaze sharp enough to shear diamond.

"To threaten me with such conviction - could it be?" asked Tristan. "That you are finally wielding your blade for yourself?"

Hope bled into his normally smooth, constant tone of voice.

"I have always fought for myself," responded Artoria, causing Tristan to hold his breath in excited anticipation. "My country, my kindgom - these make up my self as king. And I will always fight for them."

Tristan's eye closed, returning his face into the impassive wall that it usually was. He sighed, releasing his breath like a deflating balloon, and shook his head.

The crack of a gunshot cut off Tristan's response.

Emiya Kiritsugu saw smoke trail off from his rifle's muzzle, heard the familiar clink of a bullet casing hitting concrete, smelled the acrid hint of burned gunpowder, and knew that Sola-Ui was dead, a neat, red rimmed little hole incised on her forehead. Kayneth dropped the Geass scroll, his shock overwhelming him like a monsoon tide crashing on a skiff. Kiritsugu aimed the rifle at Kayneth, narrowing his eyes as he saw Kayneth's head lining up with the rifle's front sight. Kayneth, even through the boulder weights of betrayal and loss weighing on him, understood that he was next, and started speaking, the single command seal on his hand gleaming.

"Lancer, retu-"

Kiritsugu pulled the trigger, silencing Kayneth with a leaden ultimatum. It was Kiritsugu that used his command seal.

"Saber, by order of this command seal, keep Lancer occupied until he dies!"

He watched as one of his seals faded from his hand. His eye twitched. He hadn't wanted to expend such a valuable tool, but he would have to make sacrifices to accommodate these surprises.

When Archer appeared on the battlefield, both Kayneth and Kiritsugu had been surprised. The difference between the two became clear in their reactions: Kayneth had sat gawking at the intrusion while Kiritsugu took his next step in less than a second. He immediately defaulted to his secondary plan of shooting down Kayneth and Sola-Ui. After all, the Geass scroll was simply an extra measure to prevent Lancer from contracting with another master - Kiritsugu could do without it.

Archer's appearance meant that there were simply too many variables to consider, and Kiritsugu had adapted, deciding through hundreds of differing options that eliminating Kayneth at the cost of a command seal was the one most efficient path of action. With Saber keeping Lancer at bay, Lancer was sure to fade away now that he was without a master.

Kiritsugu heard the sounds of spear and sword clashing again, and knew he would be safe. Saber was strong enough to keep Lancer busy for days, and it was doubtful that Lancer even had minutes left. Archer was too high-minded, too conceited to ever lower himself to targeting someone as lowly as a master just for the sake of winning the grail. In the first place, Archer had never even seen this war as a contest.

Kiritsugu took a phone, sleek and black like the rest of his equipment, and punched in a familiar number. He held the phone to his ear, and not two seconds later Maiya's voice answered.

"Maiya," said Kiritsugu. "Archer has made a sudden appearance. Sweep the area and see if his Master is here."

"Understood."

Kiritsugu shut his phone and sighed. Archer's independent action made it likely that he was acting alone. If that golden Archer meant serious business, then Kiritsugu had to act quickly.

Two command seals left. He could afford another one to call a retreat if the situation dropped rock bottom.

"Oh? So you're her master?" asked Tristan as he emerged from behind a column.

Nine tenths of Kiritsugu's battle methodology operated on planning, but his one tenth of instinct was honed enough that his assault rifle was already pointed at Tristan's head before he could even fully process the situation.

Tristan glanced at the rifle. "You know that won't work on me."

Kiritsugu shoved away his confusion at seeing an eighth servant and used all the tools he had available to decipher this mystery. He activated his Master's clairvoyance, watching as Tristan's status flowed into his mind.

Class: Archer

Master: ?

True Name: Tristan

Sex: Male

Height/Weight: 186 cm/78 Kg

Alignment: Lawful Good

STR: B

END: A

AGI: B

MGI: B

LCK: E

NP: A

Class Skills

Magic Resistance: B

Independent Action: B

Personal Skills:

?

?

?

Noble Phantasm:

?

?

So this was the Archer that was mentioned, not the Tohsaka Servant. Regardless, this was still a real servant. Kiritsugu's chances of survival plummeted, but he tried adapting regardless. Using another command seal to pull Saber in would let Lancer follow, ensuring Kiritsugu's death. Any form of offense that Kiritsugu could muster would be less dangerous than an infant's poke to a Servant of this caliber.

He was at this Servant's mercy, but even then he adapted. He was at the mercy of a Lawful Good servant, the chivalrous knight type that would never kill without some justifiable reason, and one with close relations with Saber. He could word his way through.

"Yes, I am your king's Master," said Kiritsugu. He tried reading Tristan's face, but all he saw was an unchanging expression made impossible to decipher through closed eyes.

Tristan leaned against the column. "The way you kill is far, far from the code of the knight."

"I'm aware."

"Then why?" asked Tristan. "Why is she still following you? Is it because the desire for her wish is so great that she is willing to turn a shoulder to her personal creed - that creed that cares all for others with nothing for the self?"

Kiritsugu was silent. He had never spoken with Saber, so he had no answers. Tristan let the silence hang for a bit.

"Oh, I see now," said Tristan. "She just hasn't seen this side of you, has she?"

Kiritsugu couldn't afford to be unresponsive. He nodded.

Tristan talked to himself.

"I cannot turn my back anymore. When I realized how little she understood of others, of emotion, I left. But this time, I shall ensure that she will know how to live for herself, but first-"

He plucked a string from his harp. Kiritsugu dropped his rifle, and he realized that wind, condensed like a blade and yet so fine that it was invisible, had sliced through reinforced weave of his trenchcoat, leaving a deep gash filling in with fresh blood on his forearm.

"That is for disrespecting my king," said Tristan. "Don't worry, tis' but a flesh wound." He turned his back. "Now go, continue with your disgusting ways, and show her the faults in her path."

Tristan dispersed into a shower of velvet and black spiritual particles, assuming spiritual form and returning to Ritsuka, his Master.

Kiritsugu dropped to the ground, pressing a hand on his cut, scrambling to treat the wound. A practical application of basic healing magecraft and some bandaging would do, but it would have to be soon. He was too busy fighting blood loss and calling Maiya to notice a doorway, filled in with a chaotic darkness like a portal, pop up in space, right beside Kayneth's lifeless body. Two long, bony arms with clawed hands, dug into Kayneth's shoulders, dragging him in, like a trapdoor spider pulling in prey into its pit.

The doorway closed, leaving Kiritsugu leaning against a column, eyes closed and breathing ragged as he focused to regulate his pain. He listened to the rhythmic clanks of spear and sword striking, listened until this rhythm grew more and more infrequent, weaker and weaker, until it finally stopped.

 **Around the same time,**

 **Mion River - Sewer System**

In the darkness of the sewers, a single light shone. A knight, covered from head to toe in quicksilver armor, held this light, which radiated from the tip of his sword like a guiding lantern. Behind him trailed a rather diverse cast of people.

A young woman, dressed in knightly black armor, followed right behind. Her rose quartz hair hung down to her chin, veiling one of her eyes in a silvery purple. Despite the intruding hair, she seemed fine, taking accurate steps forward. What stood out most about her was her shield: a colossal cross-shaped barrier, both taller and wider than her body. Despite the shield's bulk, she carried it with a familiar ease, like it was a purse.

"Senpai," the woman said, her voice echoing in the closed chambers of the sewers, "how long until we reach our designated target?"

"Dr. Roman said it was around here, so anytime now," responded Fujimura Ritsuka, looking at a holographic map projecting from a watch-like device on his wrist. He pinched his nose as he followed the light, his human eyes unable to deal with the sewer's darkness. His white uniform was now stained with splotches of questionable color, but his gait, quick and resolute, made it evident that he didn't seem to mind.

Behind them, like a rear guard, followed an onyx skinned behemoth. He needed to stoop to not hit the ceiling; he must have been almost four meters tall. His muscles armored him like a tank, and he would have seemed like a demon were it not for the gold. Gold tattoos patterned his body in intricate weaves, while golden bands, necklaces, rings, and greaves jingled with each of the his giant strides. The treasure trove of jewels painted him regal rather than brutal, wealthy rather than monstrous. And just in case anyone doubted his kingly aura, his eyes shone with gold, and even his teeth were made of it.

The light bearing knight stopped, his armor clinking as his body tensed. The woman behind him took the cue, dashing in front of him and planting her shield on the ground.

"Mashu!?" asked Ritsuka as he took three careful steps back.

A hail of daggers pattered on the shield, deflecting off its smooth surface without so much as leaving scratches, like raindrops on a windshield. Mashu's violet eyes narrowed, her alert pupils darting as they counted.

"Twelve hostiles. They appear to be ghosts."

Ritsuka nodded. "Then Roland can exorcise them."

The silver-clad knight shook his head. "I have exterminated too many witches and necromancers to know that these are no mere ghosts. Shielder, stay here and protect the master."

Ritsuka glanced back at the giant. "What about Darius?"

"Bah!" spat Roland, "I need no infidels in my midst."

Without hearing any objections, Roland blasted forwards, his sword a blazing comet that illuminated the sewers. With this kindled light, Ritsuka could make out the attackers.

"Hassans?" he asked, noticing the shadowy auras wreathing the professional killers. "Shadow servants?"

Mashu nodded. "Yes. They do not seem as powerful, however."

The twelve Hassan arranged themselves around the sewers like a horde of bugs, with some holding on the walls, others hanging from the ceiling. All of them hurled their daggers in concert. Roland twirled his blade, sending a dozen parried daggers spinning in the air, clattering on the ground in defeat.

"Such clumsiness - how inelegant," said Roland, shaking his head. "How unforgivable."

He sped forward, his speed gouging out scars in the stone floor, and slashed, bisecting three Assassins. Before their upper halves hit the floor, he had already skewered another Assassin, its body writhing against his sword hilt.

The remaining Assassins fled, bunching into an undulating mass of running black bodies. Roland saw his chance. Flicking the skewered body off his sword, he chanted:

"O light that banishes the darkness of heresy, enlighten these infidels - Durandal"

Light, bright electric blue and crackling like its namesake, sparkled around the sword. Roland cut the air in front of him in a wide arc, flinging the light at the retreating Assassins.

The light thinned out into a circle, spinning like a buzzsaw as it tore through the remaining Assassins.

Roland tossed his sword in the air and held out his scabbard. The blade dropped in with a satisfying click, and he fastened the weapon to his waist.

"How was my performance, my lord?"

Ritsuka stroked his chin, tilting his head in thought.

"Six out of ten."

Roland sighed, his whole body slumping.

"Ah, to see myself scoring so low against such vermin." He thumped his chest in penance three times, sending out three hollow clangs as his gauntleted fist struck armor.

"I have heard of rating performances before," said Mashu, "but in my readings the judges always had criteria to judge with. What were yours, senpai?"

Ritsuka faced Mashu, but his eyes tracked Roland. "Back in his age, his king was an art maniac, and loved to see everything like a performance. I'm just trying to fill in."

"I see." She nodded to herself. "But what did you judge him on?"

A bit of silence.

Ritsuka was about to give another roundabout answer to cover for the fact that his ratings were based on nothing at all when Roland interrupted.

"Please, my lord, say no more!" said Roland, standing up in alert. "Judging art is supposed to be a subtle ordeal. One shrouded in mystery that makes it all the more beautiful. To lay bare your thoughts would be akin to a sorcerer revealing the details of his craft."

"I don't understand," responded Mashu, "Then how do you actually know how well you performed?"

Roland shook his head again, like he was dealing with a child. "You have not had much exposure to the world, so I do not blame your undeveloped tastes. You see, it is because the judgement is a mystery that it is beautiful. Judgement, like emotions, are complicated, incomprehensible, wild - and yet it is because of their mystery that they are all the more alluring."

Ritsuka nodded, not knowing what he agreed to, but felt that it was right. "Yeah, mystery, you know?"

He hoped the answer would be satisfactory for Mashu.

"Indeed," said Roland. "If the mysterious beauty behind my lord's judgement fades, then I fear he will lose his right to be my lord, my judge. Then it may be that my blade, my harshest critic, will turn to the false judge."

Ritsuka nodded faster now, beads of sweat starting to form on his forehead.

Mashu considered for a moment. "I see. I don't quite understand, but that's probably because I haven't had much exposure to the art world, like Roland said."

Roland started walking again. "It is no problem, my child. You will learn more the more you experience, and for that, you must move forward." He waved everyone on.

Several minutes passed before Roland drew his sword again, a flash of light bursting from his scabbard. He waved a cautioning hand, orchestrating silence among the group. He angled the sword lower, and tapped its pearl encrusted pommel.

The light around the sword, glowing like a ghostly veil, gained substance, expanding into a halo of radiance that lit the entire sewers up as clear as day.

It was like Roland had lit a match in a cockroach infested pantry. Dozens upon dozens of Hassan thronged around a single area, facing away from Roland. They were a wall of black flesh, backs turned to the group, trembling as individual Assassins moved in an out of the circle of bodies in a frenzy, oblivious to the intrusive light.

"How ugly," said Roland. A flux of magical energy whirled around him, circling his sword in wires of light. "Yet ugly stages make brilliant performances shine all the brighter."

"Wait!" Ritsuka looked at the watch on his wrist and tapped it, projecting the holographic map again. "This is where the Grail is. We can't afford to destroy the whole area."

Roland kept his Noble Phantasm primed. "Then how do you suppose we deal with these bugs? It is evident that these shadow servants were summoned, perhaps even to guard the grail. If they are not felled in one blow, they may steal away the grail."

Ritsuka smiled. "Tristan would have been perfect for this job, but Darius is just as good. Darius, don't let any of them escape."

Darius clenched his fists, as massive as basketballs, and channeled his magical energy, letting loose a guttural growl that made even the sewers tremble. A ring of royal purple, shining bright like a neon light, circled the Hassan.

From this ring, as if emerging from another world, an army of undead came. Ring after ring of skeletal warriors, their bony bodies twisted into horrifying figures, surged forward, boxing the Hassan in. Armor and robes blurred into flashes of gold and purple as the skeletons, armed with swords, spears, and even sharpened bones, charged, cinching the ring shut like a triggered loop snare.

Chunks of flesh, whole arms and legs, broken skull masks - all of these scattered in the air as the skeletons, the once proud Athanaton Ten Thousand that defended Persia, fought once more.

Roland twirled his sword in the air again. "Such a barbaric performance, so simple-minded, and so without elegance." He held out his scabbard, and the sword slid in. "But I expected nothing more from an infidel."

Darius growled again, his voice raising almost to a roar. Roland shrugged, but said no more. The ring faded away, and so too did the soldiers, their undead bodies crumbling into dust.

Ritsuka strained his eyes as he looked for anything resembling a golden cup. As the butchered assassins dissipated, what he saw was entirely different.

Where the Assassins had gathered was a living corpse. Ritsuka saw a young man lying on the ground, his face not much older, but his hair white and ancient. At least, he thought the man's face was older - he could somewhat tell based on the wrinkleless skin, but the mangled face was so beaten that it was a mass of swelling contusions and scars resembling a cluster of bubbles, like the type you'd see floating around soapy water.

Ritsuka saw arms and legs bent the wrong way, ribs sticking out of flesh, blood sprinkling from a dozen stab wounds like a human fountain piece. He closed his eyes, taking in deep breaths to battle the nauseating sight, only to find himself inhaling the sickening smell of the sewers.

He exhaled, his body quivering.

Roland performed a metallic clap with his gauntleted hands. "Ah my lord, you are already used to the beauty of violence? Such hasty improvement, and yet nothing I would not expect from my own lord."

Ritsuka nodded, a weak smile playing about his lips. Mashu rested a hand on his shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. She said nothing, but her silence was more comforting than any words.

Roland placed a palm on his sheathed sword's pommel. The pearl encased in the handle gained a lustrous iridescence, sparkling with a rainbow shine.

"Shall we heal him for some answers?" he asked, green and lively energy threading from the jewel and curling around his fingers.

"That would be unnecessary."

Particles of darkness swirled around a point of space in front of Roland, layering into a grainy outline of black. This outline filled in, revealing Watcher.

Roland clutched his sword handle.

"Hold on there!" said Watcher, holding its hands up. "I am merely trying to save my Master here. As a fellow Servant, you should understand that sentiment, yes?"

Roland kept his hand on the handle, and stood still, poised to strike. "Hiding is the epitome of cowardice. As an artist of the knight's path, I cannot stand it - bare your concealments."

Watcher raised appealing hands towards Roland.

"Oh, if only I could! You see, O glorious knight, my status as a Servant is permanently concealed due to an ability of mine that is simply not within my choice to dispel."

Roland didn't let go of the handle.

"I cannot risk endangering my lord with your cowardly tricks."

Ritsuka defused the tension.

"We're from Chaldea, an organization that's here to... save the world," said Ritsuka, motioning around himself to introduce everyone. "We don't mean any harm." Roland took his hand off his weapon.

Ritsuka continued. "We're here to retrieve a Holy Grail that should be around here. It shouldn't be the same grail that you and your Master are fighting for, so if you could tell us if you saw anything like a grail, that would be really helpful."

"Oh? If you do not mind one so lowly as I asking, how be it that you can sense the presence of a Grail?" asked Watcher.

"Through devices and connections linked to Chaldea," said Ritsuka.

Watcher nodded, shrugging at this boy's naivete, and snapped a finger, startling everyone.

"Ah, forgive me. When I understand something, it is in my habits to associate what I learned with a physical cue." Watcher tapped its head. "Helps with the memory, you see."

Ritsuka nodded hesitantly. Heroic Spirits were full of oddballs, so this one was probably one of them.

Watcher shook its faceless head, the shadowy aura coating it waving like flames under wind with each shake.

"To answer: I am very, very sorry, but I know of no such item lying about. Rather, it somewhat seems preposterous, and I do not mean to slander you or the great inventors of Chaldea, that I, or any other servant, would be unable to sense an artifact of such caliber, no?"

Ritsuka couldn't deny that. He tapped his wrist device again, and watched the holographic map to reconfirm the grail's location. The flagrant red dot that had marked the grail's position was absent not only from the sewers, but from the entirety of the map - the whole of Fuyuki.

"Huh?" said Ritsuka, rubbing his head.

Watcher gathered Kariya in its arms, thin and spindly, like a spider weaving web around captured prey.

"I shall take my leave, then."

Roland stepped forward, unsheathing his blade in a flash of light.

"Stay, heathen!"

But Watcher was gone, warping away in a swirl of distorted space with its Master, like they had never existed at all. Not even the blood stains its Master had left drying on the concrete were there.

"Now what, Senpai?" asked Mashu.

Ritsuka's answer had no hesitation. "We just have to consult Dr. Roman, of course. He and Da Vinci have all the coordinates and directions we need.

With casual confidence supporting his voice, Ritsuka called out to the air. "Dr. Roman, are you there?"

A familiar holographic screen popped up. Yet instead of showing a disheveled, overworked doctor, the screen held only static.


	4. The Deal

Kariya groaned as he roused from sleep, rubbing his face as he did so. Instead of feeling soft flesh, he felt a hardened, metallic palm. He almost panicked before remembering the aftermath of yesterday's battle where his hands had mutated after using Monstrous Strength. Nevertheless, the shocking sensation jolted him awake, causing him to sit up as his groggy and exhausted mind adjusted, sharpening the blurry world around him.

He blinked.

This wasn't anything he'd expected to wake up to. His clothes, those tattered, battle worn, sewer filth stained hoodie and pants, had been completely repaired. He was sitting on a king size bed, its mattress a clean, soft velvet that sunk like marshmallow, making him feel like he was suspended in an air of comforting warmth.

He got off the bed, his muscles sending quakes of pain, dull but persistent, pulsing in so many spots of his body that he felt like his whole body was one giant bruise. He grimaced, but adjusted in short order - the pain was a pinprick compared to what his worms could dish out anyway.

His feet landed on beige carpet, so well groomed that it almost shone. The room around him was the epitome of Western luxury - the type he'd only really seen in movies.

"How wonderful it is to see you all fixed up," said Watcher, manifesting in front of Kariya. Now that he was right in front of Watcher, he could appreciate his servant's height: Watcher was like a shadow cast by a tree, looming more than a meter above him.

"Watcher, what happened?" asked Kariya. He could recall that he had blacked out when an Assassin had slammed a dagger flat on the back of his head. What he was curious about was how he had survived.

Watcher clasped its hands together. "Oh, my Master, how brilliant, how valiant, how utterly heroic you were! Standing firm against the endless tide of evil, you wielded your holy sword and fought till death was one finger away from taking you!"

Kariya clicked his tongue. "I don't need any of that. Tell me what happened."

Watcher landed a grasping hand on his shoulder. "When your consciousness faded, I had almost believed you dead, but alas, Fate is no match for you! A rule-breaking Master with four servants, bloodthirsty and mad for the Grail, annihilated the Assassins attacking you."

Watcher placed a second hand on Kariya's other shoulder, facing him with that shadow blotted, darkness patched circle that it called its face.

"I, as your most loyal servant, the minstrel to tell your legend, saw that this Master, so awash with greed, would have immediately torn you apart if he had seen that you were a Master. So I used the one ability unique to me, and transported you away."

"And what ability would that be?" asked Kariya, wanting to get a better understanding of his Servant's capabilities. He hadn't had the time yesterday to check his Servant's status, he had just believed that Watcher was useless based on its own words.

Watcher was silent for a few seconds.

It laughed. The laugh had a deep, guttural reverb to it, distorting it so much that Kariya couldn't help but shudder when it assaulted his ears.

"Forgive my voice, I am just feeling so excited about recent developments," said Watcher.

"Your inspiring display of heroism yesterday was touching," Watcher continued. "So touching, that it lets me now unveil one of my abilities. I used a Skill, my Master. It is called Independent Manifestation."

Kariya crinkled his forehead. "Independent Manifestation?"

Watcher let go of Kariya's shoulders. "Think of it simply as teleportation."

Kariya nodded. "What are the rest of your abilities?"

The next instant, he found Watcher's finger resting on his lips, its sickled claw prickling the tip of his nose.

"Such bold questions, my Master. I have a permanent ability to conceal my status to any Masters, even you," said Watcher. "Alas, that ability is not mine to de-activate. I am quite the shy one, you see. However, if you progress as a hero, as the servant Berserker, then I, too, grow with you, revealing my abilities as your strength grows."

Kariya nodded only after Watcher's finger receded.

"And the sword?" he asked. There was no question that the sword, despite him being an amateur with it, was an incredible tool. With it, maybe, just maybe, he could face up to Tokiomi.

Watcher shoved a hand into its cloak, its absurdly long arm disappearing in black folds like it was sucked into a different dimension, and drew out the longsword.

"I would never deign to leave my Master's Noble Phantasm lying in some dirty sewer," said Watcher.

Kariya took the sword in his grip, turning it over in his hands, feeling his growing familiarity with the blade's weight. He rested the sword on the bed, and noticed with a sidelong glance that the inkblot of black that decorated the blade's cross guard had expanded, almost painting over the gold.

Odd, but unimportant.

"So," said Kariya, turning to face Watcher again. "Where are we?"

"My teleportation was much too unreliable for an outstanding Master such as you," said Watcher. "I warped you away onto the riverbank, and from there I carried your body, that heroic, battle-scarred body, quite the distance, passing over modern landscape into a forest until I found this mansion."

"Mansion?" wondered Kariya. He'd never recalled a mansion in the area. He tried tracing what path Watcher had taken. If Watcher encountered forest, then that meant he had walked straight East from the Southernmost point of Mion river. In that forest was-

"The haunted house?" said Kariya.

Watcher shrugged. "It does not seem haunted to me. Rather comfortable and luxurious, no? Fitting for a hero of your caliber."

There was something important about this place. Kariya knew that. Yet he couldn't find what it was. The harder he searched in his mind, the faster that memory fled. He looked at Watcher, and the memory escaped, fleeing into the dark depths of oblivion where memory went to die.

"My Master, it seems that you are still struggling with your wounds. You will find a meal befitting a hero downstairs," said Watcher.

Kariya sighed. Breakfast would be more productive than trying to catch a random memory. Thinking of a meal brought his hunger, which had been buried down by survival instincts and adrenaline, to surface. He hadn't had a proper meal in a while. A day? Two?

He didn't know, and that in of itself was a worrying thought. He needed to eat to pick his energy back up, to give his new body the material it needed to evolve.

He walked towards the room's door, an oak masterpiece lacquered to a polished shine, and opened it. A sudden, curious thought nagged him.

"Wait, you can cook?" he asked.

Watcher tilted its head, its tophat fighting gravity and drooping down. "Oh, was that a surprise? Of course! Like I have said, I have all the tools needed to fashion you into the finest there is."

Kariya nodded, and took a step out. He breathed in the woody, almost antique smell of the home, feeling it fill his lungs without scratching pain in his throat. He took another step, appreciating the lack of a limp. He stretched, feeling all of his muscles working, albeit weighted by pain, like he had underwent an intensive workout.

He was leaps and bounds ahead of his past self, that pain addled, half broken thing he had called his body. And he had Watcher to thank for this. Despite Watcher's oddities, despite the mysteries still surrounding it, he couldn't help but feel grateful.

"It's a bit late to say this, but thank you, Watcher," said Kariya.

Watcher bowed.

"By the way, Watcher," said Kariya.

"Yes?"

"Doesn't someone own this house? I heard it was abandoned, but seeing how well its been kept, I doubt it."

"Don't worry about that, my dear Master. I have dealt with all trivialities. Anything that happens in this house will all be to forward your growth as a hero."

Kariya shrugged, walking out and closing the door behind him.

* * *

Tohsaka Tokiomi was the quintessential magus. He was the type of person to put family name above family members. He considered the 'Tohsaka' part of his name infinitely more important than the trivial 'Tokiomi' part. And above all, his stubborn determination, as potent as a starving dog's grip on a bone, let him stick to his personal code with an iron will.

That sheer determination let him, born with mediocre potential, achieve a respected status through hard work. And it was that status that allowed him to proudly be elegant. He had earned the right to be elegant, after all, putting in a hundred times more work than anyone else of his status.

Elegance in everything - that was his motto.

Yet there was one field where that motto failed him: modern technology.

Tokiomi made huge, exaggerated turns with the steering wheel in front of him, as if he didn't trust that his car, a beaten up rental, could actually move with just a slight prompting. He cringed as the car's wheels screeched as they tried performing an absurd turn.

The car behind him honked, like it was mocking him. He ignored it. The complaints of the rabble were nothing to him. Instead, he practically crushed the acceleration, zooming through a red light

The annoying whistle of a police siren sounded nearby, and he shook his head. Commoner rules were truly indecipherable. It wasn't like he couldn't drive. Aoi had described his driving as 'acceptable', after all. It didn't matter that right after his life threatening display of skills, she had suggested that she take over any and all matters involving driving.

He sighed. The real reason he couldn't drive was because obvious. This rental car was nothing more then mobile scrap metal. He couldn't drive around with his luxury model since that would bring about too much attention, but he truly believed that if he was behind the wheel of a luxury car, he would perform far better instead of crashing something worth far more.

A few close crashes and hypnotized police officers later, and Tokiomi found himself in front of a forest. He parked his car on someone's porch and got out, reading a letter written with so many curves and flairs that half the paper seemed to be made of squiggles.

The Edelfelts had contacted Tokiomi, complaining about one of their inactive mansions being broken into. Despite not being occupied for seventy years, the Edelfelts still poured in money to keep the house running, even hiring one of the cleaners for the Grail War as a gardener and house-cleaner. Tokiomi could understand that sentiment. Maintaining one's property was a sign of dignified elegance.

What Tokiomi couldn't understand was how anyone had broken into the house. Any magus that could fight past the guardian ghosts, dozens of unique traps, and jewel golems would almost be deserving of the mansion. From the letter, it was apparent both the defenses and the familiars had been dismantled by an attacker. What seemed more probable to him was that the Edelfelts were trying to save face, and that the reality was that after being neglected for so long, the house's magical attributes had shut down.

He strolled through the forest, his ruby tipped cane, the most powerful mystic code in his arsenal, resting in his hand. The Einzberns had their own castle, and Waver Velvet was still living in the Mackenzie household, but he couldn't discount the possibility that one of the Masters had broken in, even if that chance neared zero.

It was more likely that some robber had sneaked in after seeing an unoccupied mansion. Even so, Tokiomi did have his duties as the Second Owner of this land. He was obligated to investigate the potential of a random Magus coming in and trying to set up an illicit workshop.

Several minutes later, and Tokiomi found himself in a clearing. In front of him stood one of the Edelfelt mansions that had been used in the past Grail War - a three story tall red brick cube lined with rows of large windows. Ivy, thick and tangled, curled around one of the mansion's brick walls, layering its faded, aged red with a lively green.

It was a bit too antique in design for Tokiomi's tastes, but it was a respected family's choice, so he acknowledged it. He wasn't here to judge house design anyway.

Tokiomi strutted forward, then hit what felt like an invisible wall. When his body made contact with this barrier, a ripple coursed through it, making it visible for just a second before fading. In that second, he glimpsed what appeared to be a spider web pattern.

Tokiomi stroked his goatee. A rogue magus? An uncouth one too, setting up a boundary field and workshop without even notifying the Second Owner.

"Intensive Einascherung"

The ruby topping his staff turned ten shades brighter, shining not red, but hot orange like the sun. A stream of flame, wriggling like a snake, lunged from the gem, slamming into the boundary field. The flame thinned as it spread across the defensive dome, forming a coat of writhing heat so hot that the air around it distorted.

As expected, the flames burned out on the dome, shrinking as they hogged all the oxygen around them to kindle their unnatural heat. Tokiomi hadn't hoped for the flames to melt the barrier, all he needed was a clear line of sight. He scrutinized the barrier, now visible under the damaging stress of fire.

"Incredible," Tokiomi remarked, watching the spider web dome like a child absorbed with a movie. Even if he had cast Intensive Einascherung a hundred times, he doubted anything would change. The caliber of mystery used for this defense was easily in the realm of high thaumaturgy, perhaps even above that.

Whoever had constructed this defensive web in the span of a single day without alerting anyone would be a mighty magus indeed. A magus of this status meant that Tokiomi would have to attempt contact through an official invitation to the Tohsaka estate for a cordial discussion of property rights.

Tokiomi turned around, planning to have Kirei make immediate arrangements so that he could tie loose ends together before scheduling his meeting with the Einzberns at the church for an alliance. His brows raised when he found himself face to face with a man shaped piece of the night. The man wore a jet black Armani coat over a royal purple silk shirt, with a shining sable tie curled around his neck. Spider black dress pants and shoes, polished to a sparkle, rounded out the man's attire.

The man stood with ramrod straight posture, his broad shoulders stiff and imposing. His face, hidden behind the shade of a broad rimmed tophat, had native African features. Tokiomi performed an elegant bow, his hand flourishing towards the man in invitation.

"I presume you are the Magus who has established this workshop?" asked Tokiomi.

The man nodded. "That would be so. What business do you have snooping around my territory?"

Tokiomi cut his bow and met the man's gaze, which was a bit difficult to do considering how tall the man was - he must have neared two and a half meters in height.

"I am the Second Owner of this land. I am afraid you require my permission to set up a workshop."

"Oh? My apologies," said the man. "You see, I am not directly affiliated with the Mage's Association and its traditions. Forgive my ignorance."

Tokiomi waved the apology away. "There is no need for forgiveness. We are both Magi, no? Let us settle this matter with elegance - perhaps over some wine."

The man smiled, and so did Tokiomi.

"If it is wine you speak of," said the man, grinning with a flash of white. "Then I invite you to try from my collection." He pointed towards the Edelfelt mansion.

Tokiomi hesitated, calculating the chances of him taking a knife to the back.

The man shook his head. "Don't worry. Setting up this barrier has taken almost all of my magical energy. I have nothing to fight you with, not to mention I do not want to make the Association an enemy."

Reasonable. Tokiomi nodded.

"Then let me lead the way," said the man. "I would be a failure of a host if I could not make your stay the most comfortable it can be."

Tokiomi watched as the man stepped forward, tapping the barrier, causing a doorway shaped space to open up. The man walked through it, and bid Tokiomi to follow with an eager wave of his hand. This man was elegant, and Tokiomi could appreciate that.

When Tokiomi passed through the doorway, the barrier reformed, the spider web weaving again as it closed off the mansion from the rest of the world. He watched the whole process, intrigued by the artistry of magecraft required to fashion such an intricate boundary field.

"I must say," observed Tokiomi. "This boundary field is superb."

Only silence heard that compliment. Tokiomi turned around, confused. Nobody was there. His grip on his staff tightened, the ruby glowing in alarm. He thought of his magical trigger - a lit match - and opened his circuits, feeling pain, hot and burning, spread through his body, working him into a light sweat.

He cursed his naivete, but only for a moment. He had Archer, after all. The King of Heroes would need less than a minute to reach his side, and then no Magus on this whole green and blue earth could touch him. His command seals emitted a low shine, prepared for usage if the situation worsened.

The man appeared on the mansion's rooftop, looking down at an unaware Tokiomi. He undid one of the buttons of his coat, and his whole body exploded into a dancing swirl of shadows. When the vortex settled, Watcher stood there, tapping its fingers together as it watched Tokiomi so tense with anxiety.

"Round two," said Watcher as it snapped its fingers.

Tokiomi pressed a sweaty hand to his head. None of his mental communications were going through to Gilgamesh. Something was jamming his link with the King of Heroes, but even when he used a quick divination spell, he couldn't find the source.

He balled his hand, the one with the command seals, into a tight fist.

* * *

Kariya gulped down his food without chewing. In part, because he was hungry, but mostly because he doubted it was edible if he could taste it. Watcher's idea of a "meal fit for heroes" was just a big slab of fire roasted meat. Roasted might be too tame of a word. Toasted was more like it.

Some parts of the meat block were chewy and raw, others were so thoroughly toasted that he was eating more charcoal than flesh. It was like Watcher had no idea how a human being ate and cooked the meat as an afterthought. The fact that the meat was presented on a jewel encrusted, ebony wood dining table highlighted how out of place the 'meal' was.

Kariya still ate, tearing chunks from his meal with his hands, now clawed just for that purpose, and stuffed them into his mouth. With his hands as they were now, he couldn't use cutlery. Either they'd snap the moment he tried putting strength into his fingers, or his claws would get in the way.

He felt Watcher materialize behind him.

"Great food," lied Kariya.

"Thank you Master, but I have terrible news," said Watcher, the rattle in its voice louder than usual. "We are under attack."

Kariya bolted to the front entrance, a sandpaper smoothed, cedar doubledoor, and pressed his eye against its dark glass peephole.

"Tokiomi!?"

Kariya waved an open hand at Watcher.

"My sword."

Watcher drew the sword out of its cloak again, and handed it to Kariya. The cheap hoodie donning knight demanding his weapon from his demonic squire: the whole exchange had an air of absurdity about it.

Kariya's hand closed around the door handle, and he pulled, opening one half of the doubledoor while tearing the handle straight off. He threw the handle aside and leaped out the door, sprinting towards Tokiomi with his sword overhead.

He saw Tokiomi blink hard, as if he was trying to shake away a hallucination. Seeing that usually reserved, rock solid attitude quiver, Kariya felt energized, his steps growing wider and wider as he closed the distance to his mortal enemy.

Kariya didn't react when Tokiomi exhaled, his tense shoulders settling into ease and his blue eyes regaining their elegant, composed stare. He didn't react when Tokiomi pointed the jeweled cane at him, the ruby generating a swirling helix of crimson around it.

"Feuer sammelt. Asmodeus Anrufe. Flammende nova," Tokiomi chanted in high speed, his words mixing into a stream of incoherent garbling.

Kariya felt the wind knocked out of his body as a mass of fire and wind exploded like a grenade right in front of his chest, roaring out a deafening crack as it blasted him straight into the brick wall of the Edelfelt mansion. He dropped to his knees, but did not fall. He would never fall in front of this man again.

He clutched his chest, the front of his hoodie incinerated into nothingness. His hands had a metallic coldness that soothed his scorched skin, and he rested there, taking shallow breaths, eyeing Tokiomi with a vengeful glare.

"Absurd," said Tokiomi, his brows furrowed. "That was a three verse spell, an explosion calling on the mystery of the flame demon Asmodeus, and yet all it did was knock you off your feet."

Kariya smiled as he trudged forward, his steps slow but precise.

"Nothing you do will hurt me now, Tokiomi." Kariya pointed his sword at the Magus. "You lost the chance to kill me, and now I'm here to repay the favor."

The glow on Tokiomi's command seals dimmed. He evidently saw no need for them against an opponent of Kariya's caliber. The Magus shook his head while drawing something on the grassy ground with his cane.

"I thought I had taught you a severe enough lesson," said Tokiomi. "But it looks like I was too lenient. Was the pain of burning alive not enough to show you the errors of your ways?"

Kariya's breaths were regular and steady now. His charred chest was healing, its burned skin sloughing off to reveal pink, fresh skin that quickly hardened into the indomitable armor that guarded his insides.

"Error? My ways?" Kariya spat. "Don't make me laugh, Tokiomi. The only one here who needs their head checked is you."

He charged again, his steps faster and stronger than before.

Tokiomi lifted his cane, revealing the magic circle he had drawn, an intricate pattern of interlocking circles. Willing magical energy into it, he chanted.

"Schmelze. Erodieren. Unterbrechung," said Tokiomi, each word expanding the magic circle until it had expanded a dozen meters wide, its bright red lines engulfing the green lawn in a sheen of apple-red light. "Let the hellish fires of damnation and the righteous flames of heaven join together."

Kariya was close now, just a few meters away from lopping off Tokiomi's arrogant head. Tokiomi felt a vast amount of magical energy leaving him as he readied his spell. He tapped the ground with his cane, and the ground melted.

It melted so fast that Kariya sunk like a concrete block, engulfed in the whitish-orange moat of molten rock. He was waist deep in heat incarnate. He flailed around, trying to keep himself from going under, his movements sluggish as the huge weight of the earth was still compacted in its molten form. He looked up at Tokiomi, floating in the air with a spell, and knew he couldn't reach him.

The liquid rock seared Kariya's skin, sending plumes of smoke billowing from his charring flesh. He did not melt. His skin, hardening every time it healed, was now reinforced to the point that it did not turn into an organic goop under the molten embrace.

As long as Kariya could move, he would. The pain was enormous, ringing in his head like a hundred sirens, but that alarm pushed him, giving him the raw, berserk determination to try and swim out of the pool of scorching minerals.

"I did not imagine you would fall this low," said Tokiomi, watching Kariya's morphed hands splashing about. "Even lower than before. You've willingly allowed yourself to be a lab rat for a Magus's experiments?"

Was that how Tokiomi explained his new-found power? Kariya laughed in his head, as opening his mouth now meant swallowing white-hot rock. He pushed through the sea of of lava, his flesh liquefying and hardening from regeneration in an endless cycle.

"You turn your back on your family's traditions, and now you use the Matou bloodline's absorption trait to take in foul, foreign magecraft," Tokiomi proclaimed, his voice stern and lecturing. "Just how far into heresy can you go, Matou Kariya?"

Tokiomi aimed his cane at Kariya.

"Intensive Einäscherung"

A serpentine length of flame poured from the cane, wreathing Kariya's upper body in a fluttering coat of fire. Kariya didn't care. He kept walking, each of his steps slow as they struggled against the thick, heavy tides of lava until he finally reached the magic circle's end. He pulled himself up, out of the pit of lava, and dragged himself onto the lawn.

The fireball did nothing to his upper body aside from turning his clothes into cinders. His skin was so durable that the flames actually burned out on his body, unable to use the unyielding flesh as fuel. His lower body, however, was a different story. Having been exposed to the lava pit, it was just a mass of bare muscle, pink and fleshy with strips of visible bone poking out. Layer by layer, his titanium skin had been stripped away until all that was left were his soft muscles, which now sputtered ablaze as smoldering molten rock plastered on his legs caught oxygen in the air.

Kariya pulled himself forward with his arms, his sword still in his hand. His exterior might have been fine, but his innards had boiled under that insane heat, leaving him functionally dead, only moving forward through sheer force of will. As long as his brain was intact, as long as he could muster up the goal of "I must kill Tokiomi Tohsaka", he could move.

But thoughts alone wouldn't win battles. Kariya's lower body would take several minutes to recover. In duels where a few seconds of lapse meant death, minutes meant a firm death sentence. His brain, muddled by the smoke and heat, could only dance around the past, bringing up hated memories of Tokiomi as fuel to keep his life's fire kindled. He was essentially unconscious, hanging onto neural activity with threads of hate.

Tokiomi hovered in the air, feeling air currents flowing in just the right arrangements to suspend him. It was like being in zero gravity, and controlling the spell was similar to an astronaut mastering movements in the weightlessness of space. It was evident from his ease of manner that he was a master in this craft.

He started chanting rapid fire, loosing an endless stream of single action spells. Black sigils manifested on Kariya's body with each chant, racking up until there was more black than skin on his naked body.

"That's enough."

Tokiomi stopped chanting, jolting his body towards the location of the voice. It was the same Magus from before. Standing upside down from the top of the spider web dome, like he was stuck to it. Somehow, the tophat managed to stay on the man's head.

"Conversion, eh?" commented the man, pointing at Kariya's body with his chin. "I'm assuming you were going to convert those low rank curses into something more explosive?"

Tokiomi raised his eyebrows. This Magus had exceptional insight - he was not to be taken lightly.

"I realize that you have invested quite a bit of time molding your subject," said Tokiomi, directing his cane at Kariya. "But isn't it quite unreasonable for you to expect me to spare that abomination after he attacked me so brazenly?"

The man laughed. "Indeed, that is true. But after pouring in so much work to make the strongest Master possible, I cannot help but try and save my new familiar."

"Master, you say? So you came here to participate in this ritual?"

"That's right. I couldn't get any command seals, as you would have expected. So I had to settle with helping a proxy."

Tokiomi cocked his head. "While it is true that Matou Kariya retains his command seals, his Berserker-class Servant has already perished. A Magus of your caliber could have easily stolen the seals."

"That wouldn't be satisfying on my own end," responded the man.

"Hm? What does 'your end' entail?

"I am a creator above all else. This web you see around you should be proof. What I want is to create the greatest puppet in existence."

Tokiomi nodded. "I see now. You want to test the limits of your Magecraft, using Matou Kariya as your puppet familiar to see how well he performs."

"That is correct," said the man as he rubbed his hands together. "What greater testing ground is there than a battlefield? And what greater battlefield would there be other than the Holy Grail War?"

"Your ambitions are admirable," responded Tokiomi. "However, I cannot risk Matou Kariya becoming a thorn in my side yet again. As the Second Owner of this land and participant in this ritual, I must disassemble your puppet."

The man held up a hand towards Tokiomi, bidding him wait. "Perhaps this can be settled with a deal. An exchange, if you will. I will offer my part of the deal first. Here-" He pointed behind Tokiomi.

Tokiomi turned around, his circuits still open and prepared against stealth attacks. He saw a video projected on the dome. It was a short one, just a few seconds long, but its contents had him holding his hands to prevent them from shaking.

"One Master controlling four Servants? But how?" asked Tokiomi, his mouth agape.

"I don't know," responded the man. "However, I have managed to bug them with a surveillance familiar that even Servants will have difficulty probing out. I trust further information would be useful to you, no?"

"That would be true," said Tokiomi, his mind wandering as he tried figuring out how this massive anomaly had slipped under his and Risei's radars. "What do you want in return?"

The man held up a finger. "First, I want you to spare my familiar here, of course."

Tokiomi nodded.

Two fingers held up. "Second, I want a guarantee that your Servant, the King of Heroes, will never target my familiar or even care about his or my actions."

Silence.

After a few seconds, Tokiomi nodded again.

"However," said Tokiomi, "At the end of the ritual, when only the King of Heroes stands strong, I must have Matou Kariya destroyed. Matou Kariya also may not directly clash with me or anyone affiliated under me for the remaining duration of the war. That is the only way I can be assured that he will not interfere with me in the crucial final moments of this ritual."

"Accepted," said the man. "Make exceptions for spider shaped familiars in your estate's boundary field. You will be receiving reports of my spying soon."

The man waved his hand, and a doorway shaped cut in the barrier opened behind Tokiomi. The man jumped from the top of the barrier, shooting straight down before flipping and landing on his feet, right next to Kariya's prone body.

Before Tokiomi left, he needed to ensure the deal's validity.

"Should we sign Geasses? Perhaps exchange a blood seal?"

The man shooed the suggestion away. "No such need. You are the one with negotiating power here, no? The threat of the King of Heroes will be more than enough to keep me from breaching the terms of this deal, while all I can do is stop giving you information. I do not wish to force an unfavorable contract with you - I did say that I would make things easy for you as your host, no?"

Tokiomi smiled.

"Then farewell. If I could have that report before the sunset, that would be splendid."

He left, deactivating his levitation spell, landing on the soft forest floor and strolling into the thick of the forest.

Watcher ripped off its disguise, sending it scattering into grains of shadow that dissolved in the wind. It gathered Kariya into its arms and walked back into the house, humming a pleasant and upbeat tone.


	5. Deal With the Devil

When Kariya regained full consciousness, he found himself lying in bed again. From the blades of orange light streaming in from a shuttered window, he could tell it was nearing sunset. He made sure his body worked properly, flexing his muscles and wiggling his extremities.

He felt weak, like he'd ran five marathons. His body, working overtime, had raced to fix his body, patching up his boiled innards and burned skin. The result was that his body was out of juice, using it all for self-repair. Healing had taken longer than usual as well. He'd been out for a few hours, hovering in a dream-like state where his consciousness stayed afloat on a sea of hate for Tokiomi.

Now that he was awake, with his mind clear from the toxic concoction of adrenaline and hate, he shook his head. He couldn't keep fighting with hate alone. Hate had blinded him to Tokiomi's tricks and traps, netting him yet another loss.

Watcher became visible, sitting on a chair in the corner of the room.

"How do you feel, Master?" asked Watcher.

"Good enough. I'm not feeling much pain. The worms haven't been eating my body lately, and any other pain is nothing compared to that."

"Wonderful news. That means my treatment has worked."

Kariya sat up, blinking in surprise.

"Treatment? You've gotten rid of the Crest worms?"

"Nope." Watcher extended a stick-like arm, pointing a finger at Kariya's head. "I realized your worms were being monitored, which is quite rude. So I went ahead and accelerated your development so that you alone control your worms."

"Zouken." Kariya clenched his bed-sheets in anger, shredding the soft velvet with his claws.

"Say, my Master," said Watcher, watching Kariya's passionate response. "What is it that drives your anger? That rage which lets you beat back broken bones with utter ease?"

"Tokiomi and Zouken both. They're disgusting people that aren't fit to be called human."

"I see. So, what are you going to do about them?"

"Kill them."

"Oh? Killing another person is quite a difficult task for the average person. You may have killed wraiths, but when faced with another man that feels and breaths just like you, do you think you can strike him down?

"Like I said, Tokiomi and Zouken aren't human. Not to me, at least. Zouken is a monster in every sense of the word. Tokiomi sold off his right to live when he willingly threw Sakura into Zouken's hands. He made a deal with the devil, and now he pays the price."

Watcher started tapping a finger on the chair's armrest. Its clawed finger made sharp clicks as it picked on wood in a constant rhythm. "Forgive me, but I probed through your memories while you were asleep to get an idea of your history."

Kariya shrugged. "Exchange of memories between contracted beings is something I've heard about. I haven't gotten any of your memories, but you seeing mine was inevitable anyway."

"Thank you for understanding," said Watcher, placing a hand over its heart. "Your determination is impressive. I can concede that Matou Zouken is no longer human. But what of Tokiomi Tohsaka? Does he not love his family? Did you not give up on Aoi because you considered that Tokiomi Tohsaka could do well enough?"

"I might have thought that a long time ago," conceded Kariya, his fists balling. "But I can't give him that leeway anymore. When I fought him the first time around, I asked him about Sakura. He still thinks he's right. Tell me, Watcher. How can anyone human believe he's right when he sends a girl, his own daughter, over to a living hell? When he steals away all her happiness just for something ridiculous like his family name?"

Watcher was silent. Kariya continued, his voice growing louder.

"I can't trust Tokiomi anymore. If it came to it, he'd be willing to sacrifice Rin and Aoi for the sake of his family name. Only a saint could forgive him, and I'm no saint."

Watcher broke in. "You are no saint, but always remember that you are a hero. Now tell me, are there any consequences tied with killing Matou Zouken and Tohsaka Tokiomi?"

Kariya didn't see the point of thinking about consequences. He knew he was doing what was right. That was what mattered.

"Why ask these questions now?

Watcher's tapping sped up. "A hero must have noble goals, otherwise what story is there to tell? The greater the potential of a story, the better the legend I can weave. Aside from that, I truly want to know what type of person my Master is. So please, if you may."

"Consequences, huh? There are none for Zouken. Once he's dead the whole Matou family will be free." Kariya stopped, like he'd realized something.

"And?" asked Watcher. "What of killing Tokiomi Tohsaka?"

"Aoi is a kind woman. She would grieve for Tokiomi, and so would Rin."

Watcher nodded. "Oh? Yet you set out from the beginning to kill both. Has anything changed now?"

A lot had changed. Kariya remembered the early stages of the war. He'd struggled against constant pain, enduring his entire body being a feeding ground for merciless worms. Every day, he remembered feeling their little teeth, sharp like needles, chomping his insides.

It was a torture beyond compare. Getting hurt on the outside, where he could see his wounds and losses, was far easier to get used to. While dying from the inside, he couldn't react to the invisible pain, leaving him only with the certainty that he would die. Every time the worms feasted, his pain felt new, and every jolt of agony meant another step forward on the race track to death.

He had grown tired of that macabre race, and it had stretched his sanity thin.

He hadn't been able to sleep, eat, and think. Combined with Berserker's monstrous strain, and he hadn't had any breathing time from drowning in pain. Saving his loved ones and killing those he hated were the only things propping his sanity up, so when his body gave in, all he had were those crutches to stay alive.

"I'm not feeling as much pain as before. I can think clearly now, for the most part." Kariya recalled his desperate fights where he tread between life and death. "I lose myself during battles, but that's about it"

"In other words," said Watcher, sitting up straight in its chair. "You can see the consequences of your actions, and as such, you won't kill Tokiomi Tohsaka?"

"No. I'm going to kill him."

Watcher leaned forward, now both its hands tapping on the armrests, the claws carving out erratic patterns in the wood. "Oh? What of the consequences?"

"I'll kill him without Aoi and Rin seeing. I'll make sure they won't know it's me."

Watcher clapped its hands. "Incredible! I love heroes with many dimensions, they make for better tales. Tell me, then, will you take Tokiomi Tohsaka's place? Take back the happiness he stole from you?"

Kariya shook his head. "It's not like that. I just want Rin, Sakura, and Aoi to be happy as a full family."

Watcher sighed, slumping back into its seat. "You must be more honest with me, my dear Master, but no matter. Honesty will come in time. For now, we must attend to another visitor."

A holographic screen fizzled into existence in front of Kariya. The image it showed were so blurry that he couldn't see anything, but realized it was clearing up second by second, like it was a low-spec piece of tech trying to show a high-definition image.

"What ability is this?" asked Kariya as he waited for the image to clear.

"This? I stole this ability from that Master in the sewers. Incredible, isn't it?"

"Uhm, yeah," said Kariya as he waited for the legion of blocky pixels to make sense.

"While we're waiting, here you go." Watcher pulled out Kariya's clothes, neat and folded, from his cloak. Kariya nodded, taking the clothes and dressing into them.

After he was done, Watcher held out the sword.

"I suspect you'll want this," said Watcher.

"Huh?" questioned Kariya before his breath caught. Zouken was there, tapping his cane on the boundary field, staring straight at Kariya with eyes so sunken in they looked like voids.

Kariya took the sword and bolted out the door, jumping from the second floor straight to the first, cracking and splintering the wooden flooring. He kicked the front door open with a dull bang.

"Zouken? What do you want?" said Kariya, shouting to project his voice. He was careful to stay within the limits of the boundary field, as he didn't know what Zouken was planning.

Zouken laughed. It was a disgusting, wheezing sound interlaced with the throaty rasp of senility.

"You don't know why I'm here?." Zouken smiled, baring a perfect set of gleaming white teeth. Surrounded by a mass of glossy wrinkles looking like they were under formaldehyde, the flawless teeth cut such a contrasting image that Kariya shuddered. "You haven't come to the house for a while now, so grandpa was getting worried."

Kariya snickered with scorn. "I don't need your help anymore. I can keep my mana up by myself. I have no need to go back to the Matou house anymore."

"Oh Kariya, is that what you think? So selfish. You might be fine, but what about dear grandpa? I can't check up on you anymore, so of course I'd be worried."

"Like I said, I don't need you. I don't need your mana, and I don't need you watching over me. I'm going to win the grail with my own hands."

"You do need me. Don't I have something you want?"

Kariya's breath stopped. "You can't mean...?"

Zouken laughed. "Yes. If you don't come to the house by midnight for some 'remodeling', then I simply don't know what will happen to Sakura."

The old monster faded away, his body sinking in the ground like a drop of water. Kariya ran after the fading, cackling visage, but when he got to where Zouken had been, he found nothing.

He had fought so hard. So hard. How many times had he come back from virtual death? And each time, he had felt so much pain he couldn't think. But now, all of it was going to be for nothing.

Kariya slammed his sword into the ground at the dark splotch where Zouken had been. A splash of darkness erupted from the blade, parting the rock with a shrill whistle. He took an immediate step back, his anger taking a seat as surprise stood up.

He looked at the scar in the ground, a several meter deep rift gouged out so clean it looked like someone had poked a giant pencil into the dirt. Black flairs of magical energy danced around the parted earth, moving in wild arcs before fading away.

"You've made progress," said Watcher. "Sooner or later, you'll know how to activate your Noble Phantasm."

Kariya didn't care about that. The shattered ground reminded him of his current situation. Rage, pure, undiluted rage, welled up inside him, clasping a fiery hand with mounting desperation.

He didn't know what Zouken was going to do to Sakura.

He didn't want to know. Didn't know any way to save her.

All he knew was that he had to save her.

But how? How? Zouken was a force of nature that had taken deep roots in the entire Matou family for centuries. How could he uproot a weed of that scale?

Watcher shook Kariya with an iron grip, and he snapped back to clear thinking.

"Don't be so glum, my dear Master," said Watcher. "This can be a chance. A chance for you to set everything right."

Kariya looked down at the chaotic crackles of night billowing around his blade. "How?"

He felt Watcher take his hand, the one with the command seals. Watcher's hand was cold, cold enough to chill some more calm back into him.

"Matou Zouken came here because he could no longer control you," said Watcher. "Use that to your advantage. You were once a hound leashed against his will, but now that leash is gone. Rip off Matou Zouken's head." Watcher stopped Kariya from responding by tightening its grip on his hand. "Don't worry about Sakura. I will make sure Zouken does not harm her. I swear it on every name possible. But to do that, I need to ask you: how many sacrifices are you willing to make?"

Not even a millisecond passed before Kariya's reply. "Every sacrifice. Any. All of them."

"Then let us begin," said Watcher.

Kariya found himself transported back in the room, with Watcher's icy grip still clasping his hand. This must be the Independent Manifestation Watcher talked about.

"Matou Zouken gave you until midnight, so we have time."

Anxiety bled into Kariya's voice. "Time for what?"

"Have you not wondered about the exact details of your constant evolution?" asked Watcher. He hadn't. He'd just taken them in stride.

"No? Then here is how it works. I've been growing Divinity within you."

Kariya looked at Watcher like it'd asked him to solve the most complicated math problem in the world. "What?"

"To be precise, it is my divinity. Every day, I have been pouring in some of my existence into you, my dear Master, so that you may have the power to obtain the Grail." Watcher poked a finger at Kariya's chest, where his heart was. Its nail produced a metallic clink as it hit his skin. "That divinity has granted you a body that marches ever forward, no matter the injury. It has granted you dominion over the Crest worms that once lorded over you."

If he had been a seasoned Magus, he would have been lost in endless wonder as to how his human body was capable of taking in divine spiritrons. But as a simple, desperate man, Kariya didn't know where Watcher was going with this. "What about this divinity? What do you want to do with it?"

"I wish to speed up the process. My Master, your current rank in divinity, at least according to this awfully contrived Servant scale, would be around D. I want to put that up to a B," said Watcher. "The sacrifice you would have to make would be losing me. I am mostly composed of divine spiritrons, so I would be reduced to near nothingness."

"How does that help me?" asked Kariya.

"As I have said, your divinity allows you dominion over insects, my Master. You may not have noticed, and I do not blame you considering your inexperience with Magecraft, but Matou Zouken is comprised of insect familiars. I trust that you can put two and two together, yes?"

Kariya could, but he didn't want to lose the single lifeline that had given him a second chance. There was a small part of him, the part in his scarred heart, that told him he would be losing a friend. But a friend was nothing compared to family, which he needed to save.

"I'll do it."

Watcher nodded. "Splendid! I knew you would be a brilliant Master all the way the end. I must thank you for helping me so much, and letting me see you develop as a hero. I thank you in advance for all the help you will give me in due time. Now then-"

Watcher placed its hands on the sides of Kariya's head. He felt how cold those hands were, felt the coldness seeping into his head, freezing his consciousness.

* * *

Kariya woke up to a dark and empty room. It was night. He was propped up against the bed, and his back was growing stiff from leaning on hard wood for so long. His sword lay on his lap. He rubbed his back and stood up.

"Watcher?" he said.

No answer. He wanted to feel bad about this. He wanted to feel sad, angry, perhaps guilty. But he couldn't. All he could muster up was a dull pang of remorse in his heart.

The only strong feelings broiling in his hardened heart were those involving saving Sakura.

He glimpsed his hand, and saw the Command Seals were still there. The Grail was giving him yet another chance, allowing him to summon a Servant even after Watcher was gone. The thought of that bonus left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth, but he swallowed it down anyways.

If it meant saving Sakura, he needed to have as many cards to play as possible.

He judged that it was getting close to ten. He didn't have much time left. He grabbed his sword and hurried out of the room, steeling himself to finally end it all with Zouken.


	6. The Hunt

Tokiomi Tohsaka tapped his cane on the marble floor of Fuyuki Church's apse. Standing behind the pulpit, he looked almost like a preacher readying himself to receive his congregation. With his dignified expression and stiff posture, he did seem like an eloquent clergyman.

In contrast, Kotomine Kirei, the genuine holy man in the Church, seemed like a downcast sinner. He was seated behind the altar on a rickety wooden chair, his back hunched with hands collected together. His stare bore down into the floor, tracing the milky discolorations in the marble.

Behind him, Gilgamesh leaned against the end of the apse, looking down at Kirei with the beginnings of a smile dancing on his lips.

The church doors opened, loosing a stiff groan as the old bolts struggled against rust. Irisviel entered, with Maiya and Artoria following suit.

"I would like to welcome you for coming at our behest," said Tokiomi. He coughed to clear his throat. Kirei glanced at Tokiomi. Tokiomi stood firm with cool painted on his face, but Kirei understood from that little cough that Tokiomi was nervous.

Tokiomi waved a hand at Kirei.

"Let me introduce you to Kotomine Kirei, my student."

Irisviel and Maiya both tensed up, their eyes locking on the solemn holy man.

"Do not worry. He has yielded all his rights as a Master and is no longer participating within this war. However, he is now the new Overseer, as the previous one was murdered." Tokiomi wrung his hands together. "Initially, I invited you to discuss terms for cooperation. However, I fear that the current situation requires far more effort to amend."

Irisviel kept her red pupils zoned in on Kirei. "What do you mean?"

The church doors opened again, this time with an explosive crash. Irisviel, Maiya, and Artoria whirled around to meet this intrusion, with Artoria moving herself into a battle stance. Tokiomi remained calm; this was within his plans.

Waver Velvet and Iskandar entered, Waver with nervous half steps and Iskandar with colossal strides.

"Oh?" said Iskandar, stroking his red beard. "Are we late? Both Saber and Archer are already here." He smiled at the two other Servants, and in turn received an icy stare from Saber and a bemused look from Archer.

"Not at all," said Tokiomi. "In fact, this is perfect timing."

"What's the meaning of this?" asked Irisviel.

Tokiomi took a purple gem from his pocket it and placed it on the pulpit. "Pardon my inconsideration. I had sent a familiar out detailing how the terms of this meeting had changed, but it seems that it did not reach you." He tapped the gem, and it started oscillating like a spinning top, growing brighter and brighter with each rotation. "It has come to my attention that this entire war is in danger of being sabotaged."

The gem, now as bright as a lit flashlight in a cave, stopped spinning and projected a widescreen image in front of the pulpit. The image showed a white uniformed young man with his face blurred by shadows. He sat in front of a campfire in the midst of what looked like a forest. Behind him were the outlines of four Servants, their appearances unclear as they were too far from the fire's light.

"What!? That's ridiculous! Four servants?" exclaimed Waver as he tugged on Iskandar's cape.

"Hoh?" said Iskandar as he took a deep breath, puffing up his already colossal frame. "I could never forget that imposing outline. To think that I would see King Darius once more."

Irisviel and Saber both recognized one of those four outlines.

"That's the Archer-class servant from before," said Irisviel.

Saber nodded. "Now I know for certain that Sir Tristan is no mere illusion."

"From what intelligence I have been able to gather," said Tokiomi. "This Master controls four Servants, and can do so without experiencing any strain. It is likely that this Master is a superb Magus, perhaps not even human."

Iskandar laughed. "So, I'm assuming you want all of us to ally and take down this new party?"

Tokiomi nodded. A general's insight was sharp indeed. "As you all know, with the elimination of Assassin, Caster, Lancer, and Berserker, this leaves us only with a fighting force of three Servants. Individually, we cannot risk clashing with such a potent fighting force."

Of course, that was in some ways untrue. Gilgamesh alone could likely defeat this upstart, but there was always the risk that the other Masters of this war would seize the opportunity and collapse on Gilgamesh. Tokiomi wanted every Master accounted for and together so that no double dealing could take place.

Irisviel crossed her arms. "Why should we help you?"

"Kirei, if you will-" said Tokiomi.

Kirei stood up and walked over to Tokiomi's side. He unrolled his sleeve with stiff, mechanical movements, revealing command seals emblazoned on the entirety of his forearm.

"Each Master that participates in this hunt will receive an additional Command Seal, as per the new Overseer's jurisdiction." Tokiomi nodded, and Kirei sat back down, his stare once again landing on the floor.

"All right!" said Iskandar, his loud voice ringing around the confines of the church.

Waver pulled at Iskandar's cape with even greater fervor. "What? How can you just agree like that? We need to think this through! And besides, wasn't I going to call the shots?"

Iskandar slapped Waver's back, sending the young man reeling. "Hahaha! What's there to think about? If I can meet Darius on the battlefield once more, then these terms are as generous can be!"

"Einzberns," said Tokiomi. "What will your answer be?"

Irisviel bit her lip. "Before I agree, I want to know this, Tohsaka: how can we trust any promises tied to the Overseer? He's been under your thumb this whole time."

Tokiomi was still for a bit, rolling around thoughts in his head like a connoisseur savoring wine.

"Kirei is no longer affiliated with me," said Tokiomi finally. "As the new Overseer, he is directly under the Holy Church's jurisdiction. He will have responsibilities that make it impossible to be partial to me."

Irisviel had less than one week's worth of experience outside castle walls, much less any experience in dealing with the Holy Church. Kiritsugu had told her many things, but there was only so much detail he could give her.

"I'm unfamiliar with any rules from the Church that would keep Kotomine Kirei from acting on his own," she said, bluffing by voicing her lack of knowledge as a pointed accusation. Either Tokiomi would fill her in with the rules that Kirei was bound with, or he was lying.

Tokiomi enclosed the gem in his fist, cutting off the projected image. "As the Overseer...," he said, pausing to put the gem in his pocket. That brief moment was enough to make something up. "Kirei operates the cleaning crews for this war. These crews report to the Church independently, ensuring that Kirei maintain impartiality."

Irisviel furrowed her white brows. "Even if that is true, I cannot risk Kotomine Kirei continuing to stay in this war. I ask that you remove him from Fuyuki after he gives the seals you promised. We cannot trust that he will stay unbiased."

"That would be difficult. Kirei is the new Overseer, after all. His presence is crucial for keeping the stability of this war," replied Tokiomi. Kirei wasn't truly needed to keep this war running, but his authority as an Overseer was still useful in the case that Matou Kariya, who still had Command Seals, made an unexpected move.

"Those are my terms," said Irisviel, unfolding her arms to emphasize her words. "If you cannot accept them, then we cannot enter into this alliance."

Tokiomi made an expression like he'd tasted something bitter. "Then it is agreed. After this hunt, I will have Kirei removed from Fuyuki. He must, however, stay in the next town over and have some communications functioning with the Church's personnel."

"We would prefer him to leave Japan entirely, but we can accept those conditions if you allow us to keep constant surveillance on him when he leaves."

Tokiomi nodded one sharp nod, like a judge hammering down his verdict. "Then that is settled." He stepped down from the altar with a quick pace that left his ribbon tie swaying. "We must move quickly. That image I showed you was taken mere minutes ago, in the forest beside the Ryuudouji Temple."

"H-hey, wait up!" said Waver, standing in front of Tokiomi. Tokiomi stopped to listen. "Don't you have any more info? We can't just barge into a forest like that and hope to find them so easily."

Tokiomi shrugged. "Unfortunately, the information I was able to procure only extends as far as showing me their general location. I do not know their exact whereabouts, only that they shouldn't have strayed from the forest yet."

Tokiomi walked past Waver like he was nonexistent. Gilgamesh followed close behind. Before Tokiomi left the church, he bowed.

"I thank you all for taking the time to be here. Let us work together to keep this war's integrity."

Gilgamesh chimed in.

"I expect a show worthy of my aid, mongrels."

The two left.

Iskandar picked up Waver by his collar. "Boy, now is not the time to be moping about!" He tucked a squirming Waver under his arm and looked at Artoria, a flashy grin on his face. "Tonight I will make sure to show you that my way of Kingship is great enough to wield your blade for."

Without waiting to hear a response, Iskandar left, dull rumbles rolling outside the church as he flew away on the Gordius Wheel.

Irisviel stared at Kirei, who still sat there like he was frozen in time.

"Woman," said Kirei, making Irisviel jump back in shock. His eyes never moved from the floor, so it was impossible to read his face. "I have no intention of following you."

"Let's go," said Irisviel, nodding to Artoria and Maiya. She couldn't trust Kirei, but the seriousness in his voice, firm as an oak and as solemn as a funeral dirge, made his statement compelling in a way.

When the church doors closed, Kirei found himself in silence's company. He was supposed to be acting neutral now. He couldn't follow Tokiomi, and Tokiomi hadn't called on him to.

He waited. Seconds spilled into minutes, and the minutes racked up to thirty. He stood up and tread towards the doors with heavy but eager steps that clicked on the marble floor.

It would not take long to get to the Matou house.


	7. Gain

Kariya ran like a wild beast, his feet clinking on asphalt as he sped through the residential areas of Miyama. He passed rows of silent, light-less houses, seeing them as blurs. He must have been running more than fifty kilometers per hour.

Thankfully, there were no cars or people moving around at this hour. It wasn't too late, nearing eleven, but there were no drunken businessmen stumbling back from work or night owls driving to excitement. The government suggested curfew as well as the Church's maintenance worked together to sweep the streets clean. The emptiness had a sense of foreboding to it, but Kariya wasn't afraid.

The road in front of him suddenly started angling upwards, as it had been built atop a hill. Kariya's skin tingled. He could sense the dense concentrations of magical energy around this area, like an animal picking up on a scent. If Tokiomi was here, he would surely have commented on how barbaric, yet incredible, Kariya's method of tracing magical flow was. Unlike Magi who thought, analyzed, and understood the flow of the supernatural around them, Kariya felt it like he would feel the wind brushing by his skin or smell a peculiar odor.

Kariya was no longer a human, or even a Magus, that made fancy chants and compiled centuries of research all to be a guest in the house of mystery. He lived and breathed mystery; he was one with the world that Tokiomi had spent decades trying to understand. He was better than Tokiomi in every aspect, and that thought brought a smiling sneer to his face.

But Kariya had no time to marvel over his new powers. He scaled the sloping road, his sword bared in front of him. The Matou mansion was right on top of that hill, and Zouken would already know he was here.

The Matou mansion was isolated in its own little kingdom of road and concrete. The Matou family had bought most of the area around the mansion, preventing anyone from building beside it, with the end result being that the mansion held a gloomy feeling to it.

The truth inside that mansion was far more disturbing than simply "gloomy".

Kariya stopped in front of the mansion, challenging its grotesque secrets. No lights were on, but the gates were open.

Zouken was inviting him.

Kariya sprinted past the gate through the courtyard, feeling the stony path under his feet turn to soft grass. He tugged on the front door, a pillar of thick wood, and it did not give. It had been bolted shut.

A trivial obstacle. Was Zouken mocking him?

With his sword point, Kariya outlined a rectangle in space in front of him, just large enough for him to fit through. Then he made his plans a reality, slashing once horizontally, then twice vertically downwards. The blade's dark steel, now coated in a fluttering layer of inky energy, did not cut through the wood, but passed through it, meeting zero resistance.

The cuts were so seamless that the door seemingly stayed intact. Kariya gave it a solid kick, and the rectangular outline he'd carved fell backwards, thudding with a heavy crash onto carpeted flooring.

Kariya wasted no time. He sped through the gap, into the depths of the mansion. He hated this place, hated how it felt, how it always had a stench of desperation lingering in its every nook and cranny. But because of that hate, he was familiar with it. He knew exactly where to go.

The mansion was large, but it was like a cheap one-bed room in comparison to his speed. Kariya weaved through corners and hallways, his footsteps so quick that they sounded a machine gun stream of dull thuds as his hardened feet hit carpet and wood.

The entire place was dark, and any ordinary person would have lost their way in the labyrinthine, night blanketed innards of the mansion. But Kariya was different. He had the power to be see in the night, to be above anyone else who had challenged Zouken. He had the power to beat this house and all its horrors. And he would use that power to end everything tonight.

Kariya stopped in front of a creaky door so aged that he couldn't tell whether its black came from the wood's natural shade or the rot. He didn't bother checking if it was locked. He slammed the door with the flat of his sword, his monstrous strength reducing the elderly door into a shower of crumbling black splinters.

Kariya saw a hallway in front of him. It sloped downwards, and it extended so long that it looked like a pathway down to hell. Underneath the ground level of the house, this hallway was even darker than the rest of the mansion, granting it a sense of finality, like it was the walkway to a final boss in a video game. He laughed inwardly; Zouken was no final boss, he was just an insect waiting to be crushed.

Kariya didn't run through the hallway, he walked, his steps shuffling and tense, like a thief sneaking past security. He was confident in Watcher's promises, but even then alarm for this hallway was engraved into his skin with the stylus of countless nights of pain. Soon enough, he would be at the basement, where pests like the worms and Zouken festered.

A feeling of questioning nagged at him. It was odd for Zouken to not have appeared by this point, whether to mock him or attack him. Kariya shook his head, casting away his doubts. Zouken hadn't known about Watcher, so he wouldn't know the exact details of Kariya's abilities.

Perhaps that was why the old monster stayed hidden. It felt good to be the one in charge, the one with the initiative and secrets, for once. Kariya reached the end of the hallway, and looked back. He was so far deep that he could barely make out the other end of the hallway. There was no going back at this point.

Kariya inspected the stone door in front of him. It didn't look like a door, more like a giant slab of blackened rock with alien symbols scrawled all over it. He placed a palm on it, and closed his eyes, focusing his attention on his touch.

The door was warm and slippery, like it had been doused in lukewarm water. Tingles tickled his palm: the telltale signs of magical energy. Kariya hadn't ever tried opening this door before; Zouken had always been the one to do it with magical means.

Kariya wasn't under Zouken's yoke anymore. He was breaking in, not being led in like a sacrifice to an altar. With an one-handed thrust, he poked the middle of the stone with his sword, testing it. The sword slid in like a diamond saw through wood. The black coating around the blade clashed with the magical defenses and seals implanted in the stone, buzzing out a screech and loosing a hail of black sparks from the point of entry.

Kariya bared a fanged tooth with the beginnings of a victorious grin. He slid the sword upwards, cutting through the stone like he was slicing bread. Zouken's defenses were nothing compared to the Noble Phantasm grade energies swirling around his blade. When the blade reached the top of the stone, he pushed it straight down, parting the stone in two.

The stone was large enough that Kariya just needed one half to topple over for him to get in the basement. Taking the sword from the stone and resting it in his right hand, he slapped his left hand on its side of the stone, and pushed. The half leaned back slowly, attesting to its girth and weight, but it nonetheless toppled, smashing apart what sounded like wood.

Kariya reached into the darkness with eager, splayed fingers, like he wanted to snatch up a prize. Then, before he could even process it, his arm had pulled back, but too late. He hid behind the other half of the stone, watching as his severed left arm twisted in the air before landing on the floor, its clawed fingers digging into the stone like a stake.

His instincts relied on vibrations within the air, much like a spider's sixth sense. He wasn't sure how an enemy could overpower his instinct, but now he knew that hiding behind an airtight barrier was one way.

Blood from his left side, where his arm had been severed at the shoulder, spurted out in a thinning stream of blue. His face had the same shocked expression that anyone would have after seeing blue blood pouring out their body. The blue stained his black pants, and instead of making them a shade darker, the blue, almost cyan, overpowered the black completely, looking like he'd spilled acrylic paint.

Feeling the sudden wetness of his blood snapped Kariya to attention. He backpedaled, his sword waving in front him as his eyes looked out for danger.

Sharp whipping sounds cracked through the narrow hallway, echoing in its enclosed space. Kariya saw the stone block he had been hiding behind diced into a dozen pieces.

Kariya stopped when he was ten meters away, and watched.

A man staggered into view, his face a haggard mess of bulging nerves and frayed blonde hair. Blue eyes, the same shade as Kariya's blood, bore into him with a wide, crazed stare. His tattered clothes fluttered with his erratic movements, like rags of blue under a breeze.

"Lancer's...Master?" said Kariya, his sword grip tightening.

"Give me. The. Grail." said Kayneth. The words were quiet, almost subdued. Not the tone Kariya had expected from a man with desperation stamped on his face.

Kariya took a few steps back, trying to give himself distance to think. Lancer's Master was supposed to be dead. He shook his head. Assassin was supposed to be dead, and he'd almost been killed by it. He himself was supposed to be dead. Death had lost a lot of meaning to him.

All he saw in front of him was an obstacle. Something to tear down and destroy, because behind Kayneth was the reason for Kariya to keep living.

"Scalp," said Kayneth.

A tendril of reflective mud surged from behind the Magus, barreling towards Kariya in a whipping motion.

The thing was fast, almost a blur.

Kariya felt it coming.

He dropped to the floor, feeling cold seep into his cheeks as the tendril, thinned so that it was like a blade, zipped above him, colliding with with the hallway's wall and leaving a several meter deep gash.

Kariya looked to see a large blob, almost as large as Kayneth, floating behind the Mage. It was a muddy color with a glossy sheen, like a levitating sphere of amber glass.

That was where the attacks came from.

"Scalp."

Kariya's instincts worked at full capacity here. His body moved before his mind did, twisting to the side as a tendril axed down, cleaving out a trough in the stone. He stood and ran towards Kayneth like a madman before the tendril could retract, his sword bared to strike.

Kayneth pointed a shaking finger, gloved in shredded white, at Kariya.

"Secis."

A spike burst out from the blob like a bullet, shooting towards Kariya's head. He didn't want to lose momentum, so he kept pressing forward, throwing his left arm in front of him to take the blow.

Which is when Kariya noticed he still had no left arm. His regeneration wasn't working. He had grown so used to pain that, in the thick of battle, he didn't even notice that he was still hurting from his lack of an arm.

It was too late to dodge.

Kariya felt something hot, almost burning, swell up in his neck. Looking down, he saw a thin cone of mud, around as thick as two or three fingers, lodged into his throat. He followed the spike with his eyes, seeing it lead all the way to the muddy blob in one thin stream. His neck felt warm all around, so he could tell the spike had punched through the back of his neck.

The warmth spread from his throat to the rest of his body, and in a way, it was comforting. Perhaps this was the final spurt of warmth that hypothermiacs felt before chilling to death. He couldn't die here.

Kariya knew he couldn't breathe, so he didn't try to. If he couldn't regenerate from this, he was dead. The moment the spike plucked itself from his neck, the moment its warmth left his body, his lifeblood would drain out of him like a water balloon poked with a needle.

The spike started retracting. Kariya panicked. It was a miracle that he could even think right now, that he wasn't already dead, but his body was a miracle in of itself. He had been given so many miracles; he couldn't waste them now.

Kariya walked forward with trembling steps, trying to keep the spike stuck in his throat like a plug in a drain. The spike started moving back faster, and he sprinted, moving down the stream of mud.

Kariya didn't think about dying now. When death was so inevitable, there was no point in thinking about it. All he had in his mind was that he had nothing to lose at this point. If he could save Sakura and kill Zouken, even with his death, he would be happy.

So Kariya raised his sword with his one remaining arm. Just a few meters now. He saw that Kayneth didn't move back, just kept looking at him with that thousand-yard stare. It reminded him of his own look when he had been blinded from the worms.

Kariya hated that stare. It was Zouken's work. He had to crush it, kill it. He surged forward, like he was being spooled in through the mercury thread in his throat.

"Scalp."

Kariya forgot that the tendril from before had already drawn back. He didn't have the clarity of mind to remember. He had the rather good excuse in that he was dying by the second.

Luckily, his body was still alive, and at this point, his body was like a separate creature from his mind. His right arm moved on its own, parrying the whip of muddied mercury. The tendril was heavy, and if he had been any ordinary human, his right arm would have been ripped off from the sheer amount of force the tendril's weight had generated.

Kariya held his ground, his sole arm budging just an inch as he felt the power of the blow course through his body like G-forces on a fighter pilot. He shook his arm, pulling his sword away from the mercury, which slunk back to the blob that controlled it.

That moment of stopping was fatal.

The mercury-mud thread slicked out of his throat, and liquid blue spurted in a jet-stream from the gaping hole in his neck. He was close enough that his blood reached Kayneth, but the blob expanded in an instant, forming a thin film around the deranged Magus, blocking even Kariya's blood from passing.

Kariya fell to his knees, looking at the ground, watching a pool of blue spread from the bloody trickle dripping from his neck. He felt dizzy. The pool in front of him warped and fluttered like a heat wave, and he started seeing double, then triple.

Kariya couldn't think. All he could do was focus on his sight, because as long as he could see, he knew he was alive. None of his other senses were working. His body was numb all over, like it was dunked in a box of ice. The only sounds he heard were distorted beyond recognition.

Now his sight was failing, black creeping into the edges of his vision. He could make out a few peripheral blurs, and from those he could tell that the blob was undulating, forming another attack.

If Kariya could have thought clearly, he would have cursed Zouken.

Kariya saw everything blur into a mix of distorted colors, and he thought he was dead.

Kariya blinked. He could see a bit better now, and from that he could tell he was lying on his back, looking up at the face of Kotomine Kirei.

Something flowed into him, something warm and full of life, spreading through his body and thawing his senses. Kariya didn't have the strength to sit up, but he could crane his neck forward a bit. With that, he saw Kirei's hand resting on his chest, shining with an azure aura as it performed a healing spell.

His wounds weren't healing, but his mind was. He could think now, and his first thought was that he needed to live. He needed to live and save Sakura.

Live, he told his body. Live.

A burst of energy, shocking like electricity, jolted his body, and he sat up, panting as he made up for the oxygen he lost while holding his breath.

Kariya felt his neck, where the mercury had pierced him, and felt something like a scab. It was hard but flexible, almost like a shell or perhaps an exoskeleton. Sensation returned to his body, and the numbness faded away, letting him feel his legs and arms.

Arms?

Kariya looked at his left side, and his arm was there again. Something like it. The entirety of his left arm was now like his claws, carapaced in spiny, metallic black and segmented at the joints, like a spider's leg.

Monstrous Strength didn't regenerate, it replaced, circumventing whatever it was that halted his healing.

"Matou Kariya," said Kirei.

Kariya looked up at him. He was standing over him, watching him with those cold and dead eyes.

"Why are you here, priest?" Kariya rubbed his throat. His voice was raspy with an unnatural undertone to it, like the calls of crickets at night.

Kirei smiled. It wasn't compassionate. It was a smile of self-satisfaction, one completely selfish. The priest lent a gentle hand to Kariya's shoulder.

"As the Overseer, I must keep track of Masters who have lost their rights to fight," said Kirei. He glanced at Kariya's Command Seals. "They would need the Church's protection, though it seems that the Grail has determined you can still fight."

Kariya stood up, brushing Kire's hand off. "Is that why you tried to kill me before?"

"An unfortunate accident," said Kirei. "I was following my teacher's orders, and I was not the Overseer at that time. Now that I am the Overseer, I can no longer work with my teacher. The Church comes first."

Heavy footsteps at the end of the hallway, paced irregularly like they came from a drunkard, broke up the conversation.

"Emiya...Kiritsugu...," said Kayneth to nobody in particular. Kariya saw him shamble forward like a zombie.

Kariya saw Kirei tense into battle stance, drawing out six black keys, three in each hand, with a single fluid motion. Kariya marveled at this sight. The man had no confusion at all, just a mechanical, automatic response to any and all possible threats.

It was a level of martial prowess, of skill drilled into Kirei's body as an Executor, that Kariya could never hope to match.

"Why are you still helping me? Going so far as fighting for me?" asked Kariya as he also went into a rudimentary stance with his sword.

Kariya saw Kirei glance at his unprofessional stance. The priest made no reaction, but his eyes spoke volumes in scorn.

"Matou Kariya. It is understandable that you do not trust me." Kirei turned his stare to Kayneth. "However, I am not the type of person to let my investments go to waste."

That explained nothing, but Kariya wasn't the type to complain. He watched the priest ready for battle.

"There's no point," said Kariya. "I'm stronger than you. Faster than you." He pointed at the corrupted Volumen. "But I can't break that thing's defense."

Kariya noticed Kirei analyzing his arm and claws. He thought maybe the priest was taking his advice and reconsidering, but Kirei turned his head to Kayneth again without so much as an iota of hesitation.

"Didn't you hear me?" said Kariya.

Kirei didn't look at him, but still responded. "Judging from what I saw, that Mystic Code is an autonomous defense system. In addition, it serves as a refined offensive tool. We are twenty four meters away, but aren't being attacked. It has a limited range." The priest gestured to Kayneth, who ambled forward with unsteady steps that seemed ready to collapse at any moment. "The enemy is no longer in control of his wits."

How could the priest pick up that much information in so short a time? Regardless, just knowing things wouldn't change anything. Knowing a lion was going to savage you didn't change the outcome that you'd get mauled.

Kariya shook his head. "So what?"

"Trust is a virtue that pays itself back," said the priest.

Before Kariya could understand what Kirei meant, the priest had already begun his attack.


	8. Regicide

Ritsuka hovered his palms over a campfire, enjoying the warmth tackling away the cold dulling his hands. Mount Enzou's altitude and Fuyuki's sharp winds didn't make for the fuzziest of temperatures to stay around in, but he couldn't complain. He had bigger things to worry about.

Beside him, Mashu was absorbed in the night sky, her mouth slightly agape as she gawked at the star patterned blanket of night above her. He smiled. She had seen the skies of so many different timelines, but each and every time was just as new and interesting to her.

"I see nothing." Ritsuka turned to see Tristan, just a few meters away, staring into the forest, looking up to the top of Mount Enzou where the Ryuudouji temple was.

Roland grabbed Tristan's shoulder from behind and pushed him to the side a bit, turning Tristan's angle of vision to the right a few degrees.

"How about now?" said Roland.

"Still nothing."

Roland shook his head, flowing locks of rainbow colored hair swaying with each shake. The knight preferred to be helmet-less for the most part, only donning his helm in the sewers for fear of dirtying his beauty.

"May I suggest opening your eyes?"

"Silence," said Tristan. "My Clairvoyance works best when my heart is calm, and my heart is most rested when mine eyes see nothing."

"But if you see nothing, fellow knight, then how can you, well, see?"

Tristan tapped one of his ears. "I listen. From sounds, I form images clearer than what your dull eyes could ever piece together."

Roland shrugged. "Well, if that is what you say." He flipped a rainbow lock out of his almond eyes. "I never did understand why you sealed your eyes."

Tristan scanned up and down his line of "sight". "Well, are you asking me why?"

"Perhaps," said Roland.

"I fear I may bore you." Tristan sighed, and continued anyway without asking whether he would be a bore or not. "I cannot help but be drawn to emotions. They are the heavenly flames to which I, the lowly moth, helplessly orbit, only to be burned when I reach out to touch them."

Roland put a hand on Tristan's shoulder. Instead of being an instructive gesture, this time Roland gave the red haired knight a sympathetic squeeze.

"Ah, I do understand that sentiment," said Roland.

Tristan nodded. "My whole life was one full of misguided loves and passions. All because I witnessed dazzling beauty or saw brilliant displays of emotion with my cursed eyes. Each and every time my eyes were captured by passion, I was burned, and all around me suffered."

"My friend, you describe me exactly!" said Roland. "I see now that we are two kindred souls, painters sharing a canvas."

Tristan shook his head. "I would join your artistry, but I have spilled too much paint laden with sins. I have long since retired from involving myself with passions, and these sealed eyes of mine are a testament to that: without my eyes, I cannot fall into emotion's poisonous embrace or beauty's temptations again."

It was Roland's turn to shake his head. "My sir!" He shook Tristan by the shoulder. "To imprison yourself is a waste. I can tell, since you are like me, that you are an artist in every walk of life. Your battles are music, your mannerisms are sculpted, and I do believe that your love life would have been as bright as any painted masterpiece."

Tristan stepped forward, prying Roland's hand from his shoulder.

"That may be true, but I cannot knowingly open my eyes to emotion again. I know that all that awaits me is pain. To step forward knowing I tread into demise is a fool's errand."

Roland laughed, and Tristan, his brows angled in a frown, turned to Roland.

"What amuses you so?"

Roland ignored his question. "Tell me, is it not true that the happiest your heart has been was when you drowned yourself in emotion? Were you not most joyous during love and most thrilled in honorable combat?"

"That may be so, but the pleasures I indulged myself in only became the flint to strike the fires of destruction." Tristan pointed to the scar, a stretched black diadem running vertically across his chest. "This is where a poisonous lance of treachery ended my life. My own life was consumed by my passions. I cannot submit to emotion again."

"Do not fool yourself," said Roland. "Life is nothing without joy. To seal yourself from emotions, from joy, just to help others is madness. I and my fellow paladins indulged in all manners of pleasures, fell into all sorts of disasters, and many times met our deaths from the very desires we craved." Roland smiled. "I am no exception. Yet not once did we think of taking another life's road."

"Is that not selfish? To indulge yourself knowing that you will bring misfortune upon others? Is that not the very opposite of the knight's code?" asked Tristan.

"No," responded Roland. "I let my emotions burn, and of course, I started fires that hurt others. But every time I did, I helped to put these fires out with all my being. In this way, I saved countless people, and at the same time, I enjoyed myself countless times."

"How is that chivalry?" asked Tristan. "You may douse your fires, but the very notion that you set them willingly is..."

"No," cut in Roland. "You mistake what it is to be a knight. To have any semblance of consideration or empathy for others, you must have pride in yourself. Without that pride, then all your acts of kindness are merely things you do out of duty, empty gestures that mean everything to the one being saved, but nothing to you."

Roland tilted his head up in a reflective gaze, like he was remembering something. "I cannot live that kind of life. That is no knighthood. That is sainthood. I am no saint, I am a knight. I live first and foremost for myself, and in living for myself, I will sate my desires. In sating my desires, in knowing them full and well, I know their consequences. And as someone with pride, I will try my best to keep these consequences from hurting as few as possible."

Tristan shook his head, and Roland cut off his reply.

"I remember now. Did you not leave to meet your king to tell her to awaken to emotion? Did you not leave her court, saying that she did not understand human feelings?"

Tristan raised one brow in questioning.

"Yes, but why bring this up?"

"Because you are being a hypocrite," said Roland. "You decide to seal yourself from emotions, fearing their capacity to pain others, and yet you tell your king to open her eyes, when you yourself have decided to shut yours?"

"My king lived her whole life understanding nothing of emotion. I spent mine chasing emotion, and I understand how painful it can be. But I also know how much joy I felt. I cannot bear to think of how she lived her entire life without any of that joy." Tristan touched a dramatic hand to his forehead, like he was mourning a sudden death in a play. "If I can get her to open her heart even once, then I can hope to introduce her to another way to live. I may shun that life now, but I cannot deny that it would be a happier one for her to live."

"A touching response," said Roland. "I expected you to say some boorish drivel like 'I don't care that its hypocrisy, I'll still do it!' like so many boring heroes of justice that I've known. But your answer has many dimensions to savor. You want to set your king on a path of emotion, knowing that it will pain her, just so that she may face some happiness?"

"Yes," said Tristan.

Roland said, "Though it is a colorful answer, that doesn't change the fact that you, my companion here and now, will never dance with me in an afterlife of passion."

"I'm afraid that is so," said Tristan.

Roland wasn't one to back down. "How can you accept such a boring life? Well, afterlife, but the fact that you are already dead means you have even less restraints to be wary of." He held out a gauntleted hand. "Come, good sir, and take my hand. I offer it to seal a bond of artistry between us. I will guarantee that I can offer you the greatest of pleasures and emotions this afterlife has to offer, you merely have to open your eyes to it."

Tristan looked at the hand, and his own hand shook a bit, trembling in hesitation.

"Mind if I butt in," said Ritsuka as he walked up to the two knights.

"Oh, my lord?" said Roland. "But you've already taken my hand. There is no need to seal a bond of artistry between us a second time."

"Nah, not that," said Ritsuka. He faced Tristan. "I wanted to talk about how you wanted to deal with your king."

"Hm?" questioned Tristan.

Ritsuka continued. "I was just wondering, if you want to get your king to open up, then why not lead with example?"

How so?" said Tristan.

"I'm not so sure myself," said Ritsuka. "But I'm sure you do. You're the one who knows your own emotions the best, right? So just act on them. Act on your passions and emotions and all of that. Be happy. I'd like to see that too."

"My lord, what an excellent answer!" chimed in Roland. "If our good sir here were to indulge his desires as much as he wants, he could show his lost king what she's been missing firsthand."

Ritsuka nodded.

"But what of your safety?" asked Tristan. "Fate has never been kind to me. I fear that if I live for myself, I will end up hurting you."

"I'm not that helpless," said Ritsuka. "I summoned you because I wanted every part of you: including all your wants and imperfections. If I wasn't prepared to handle those, then I couldn't be fit to be your Master. Besides, I have Mashu to protect me."

"I...will try to be more myself then," said Tristan. "Thank you for easing my worries, Master. And Roland, my fellow knight, I thank you for showing me a a better way to live."

"Then you've accepted my offer!" said Roland. He snatched Tristan's hand and pulled the knight close to him. With his free arm, Roland locked Tristan even closer to him, trapping him with an uncomfortably tight hug.

Before Tristan could question this, Roland let go.

"You look confused," said Roland. "I am disappointed. I thought I had come across another artist in the way of brotherhood, but alas your tastes in that area are unrefined. Let me tell you, good sir, that the best way to seal a pact of brotherhood is a close embrace. Hearing each others heartbeats through the chest directly, whether with a lover or a comrade, is the most beautiful, most efficient way of going about things."

Ritsuka looked at Roland's armor and said, "But don't you have armor on? How could Tristan hear your heart?"

Roland waved the thought away. "The little things do not matter, my lord. It is the action and the thoughts behind it that counts. And sir Tristan here has better hearing than most, no?"

"I...suppose so?" said Tristan, still unsure of what had just happened.

"Than that is settled," said Roland. He slung an arm around Ritsuka and Tristan, pulling all of them in a huddle. "From this moment forward, we are all brothers in arms. And oh - here's our first mission together as brothers."

"Did you sense the demon pillar?" asked Ritsuka.

Roland made sure to keep everyone in the huddle. Ritsuka thought that Roland's face was uncomfortably close, but he didn't complain.

"No," said Roland. "I would instantly know if Astaroth itself came near. Right now, it feels like a group of beings cloaked with Astaroth's concealment spells have surrounded us."

Roland broke the huddle and drew his sword in a flash of light. Magical energy surged from the knight, forming into flares of gold and silver that wreathed Roland in a blinding shine - letting the whole world know where he was.

"Come forth, skulking heathens! Face my blade head-on!"

Tristan materialized his harp, and took a position a few meters behind Roland.

Ritsuka ran back to Mashu, who had already felt the danger of the situation and stood ready to defend him.

"Mashu, cover me for a sec while we figure out what's happening," said Ritsuka.

Mashu nodded, but her nod was half-hearted, like her mind was weighed down with another issue.

"What's wrong?" asked Ritsuka.

"I've read about this before but...," said Mashu. She looked at Ritsuka with a worried expression. "You don't happen to swing that way, do you?" The 'that way' was emphasized with a nod towards Roland and Tristan.

Before Ritsuka could respond, Darius materialized in a torrent of royal purple, giving form to his massive body in less than a second.

"ISKANDAR!" shouted Darius as he barreled forwards into the forest, his twin golden axes swinging like pendulums. The black giant mowed down the trees in his way, his axes snapping the thick trunks like toothpicks.

"Wait!" shouted Ritsuka, knowing that his commands were pointless now. Darius would never listen or back down if Iskandar was here. This also meant that Iskandar was one of the enemies, and Ritsuka bit his lip, knowing full well how powerful such an enemy was.

"Shielder! Prepare your defenses!" exclaimed Roland as he pointed behind Ritsuka, towards a brilliant golden flash, even brighter and stronger than that surrounding Durandal, which exploded into existence in the thickets of the forest. Even though the burst of light seemed like it started hundreds of meters away, the enormous amount of magical energy that came from it could be felt from kilometers around.

The light surged forward, becoming a massive wall of gold that took up all of Ritsuka's vision. He'd seen something like this light before, only corrupted. There was no doubt about this - it was Excalibur's activation as a holy sword rather than a demonic one. In just a few seconds, he and everyone else around him would be ashes, perhaps even less than that.

He saw Mashu blink. She didn't have time to chant her Noble Phantasm.

A flash of silvery gold darted in front of him, and he saw Roland facing the approaching mountain of golden energy. The knight was like an ant compared to the giant boot of holy power that was ready to stomp everyone out of existence.

Ritsuka saw Mashu take position behind Roland and place her shield directly behind him. The shield gathered magical energy in chalky swirls that wafted like snowflakes.

Roland held Durandal with both hands and positioned the blade so that it lined up perfectly with his head. He looked like those statues of knights that Ritsuka had seen in games or stories.

The chalky layer of fluxing prana on Mashu's shield darted forward and surrounded Roland, giving his armor a lighter, snowy hue.

The mountain of light ate all the trees in its way, drowning out the entire landscape, leaving only that blinding, dreadful glare. Despite being a light of hopes, it looked very ready to crush Ritsuka's hopes.

A cracking sound, like glass being shattered, emanated from Durandal. Ritsuka felt like his body was lighter, and looked down at himself. His body was covered in a film of silver light, and he turned to see Tristan's body was the same.

Excalibur hit them, and Ritsuka could only see gold now. It was like he was a surfer drowning under a massive tide, only this time the tide was the concentrated magical energy of a planet defending holy sword. He didn't actually feel anything, and he wondered for a second if this was what vaporization was like.

He wiggled his fingers, and could tell they were still there. It was like he was swimming in golden light. He could feel his body, but he couldn't see any of it. The raw amount of magical energy packed in the light weighed him down, almost like higher gravity.

It was like the entire beam had phased through all of them. In a few seconds, the light vanished, becoming thinner and thinner until the impenetrable walls of gold blocking his vision became transparent, then sparkles that blew away with the night breeze.

Ritsuka found himself in the middle of a crater, maybe a half dozen meters deep. The silvery film around him faded away, and he yelped in pain as he felt the ground, charred and smoking, burn into his shoes.

While dancing from one tiptoe to another, he recognized that the barren, burning dirt around him formed an open and flat battlefield. He checked up on everyone else, and found them in good shape.

"Shielder," said Roland. "That was splendid. You may be inexperienced, but you took my cue and gave me the blessings of your defensive skill."

Mashu blushed. "You were amazing as well, Sir Roland. I didn't know your protective miracle could extend to the whole party."

Roland looked down at his sword handle, his eyes a bit downcast. "Hm. Saint Denis's miracle lets me share all of my defensive strength to my allies, but alas it can only be used once."

"I hope you don't mind," said Ritsuka.

"Not at all. I still have two more miracles, both embodying overwhelming power. All this means is that I can freely throw myself to destroying rather than defending." Roland smiled, his eyes alight with expectation. "I rather do prefer slicing to blocking."

A disembodied voice rung throughout the forest, echoing so that Ritsuka couldn't pinpoint where it came from. Sounded like Magecraft.

"Greetings. I am Tokiomi Tohsaka, one of the participants of this grand ritual. You, an intruding Magus, have blasphemed against the integrity of this ritual, and thus have been sentenced to die."

"Wait, what?" said Ritsuka.

"It appears that the inhabitants of this singularity have designated us as hostiles," said Mashu.

Tristan cocked his head, straining his ears.

"I sense several presences in the area. Two Servants and four humans."

Roland laughed. "Brilliant! I presume all the original Servants here have banded together against us to make up for their lesser numbers." He ran a hand through his hair, adjusting it with a dainty touch befitting a prom queen. "Which means that individually, we are facing ants. Come, good Sir, let us go hunting."

"Did you not witness this attack just now?" questioned Tristan. "There is no doubt that this is the holy sword of my king, the fabled Excalibur."

"Even better," said Roland. "I've always wanted to face one of the Nine Worthies in battle. Let us see if they deserve the 'worthy' part of their title."

Ritsuka saw a figure materialize twenty meters away from him. When the rain of gold and blue particles settled, he saw King Arthur standing there, sword staked in the ground, challenging everyone.

Roland's smile grew even wider. "And there he, or she, is. The great King of Knights, so they say." He pointed Durandal at Artoria, and Artoriaresponded in kind by drawing Excalibur from the dirt. "King of Knights, eh? How arrogant. I may be a knight, but I will not recognize that feeble little girl as my supposed king with title alone."

Roland dashed forward, his greaves blasting apart the dirt as he propelled himself into the air like a jet fighter, clearing the twenty meter gap in a second.

Ritsuka blinked as a shower of golden sparks exploded from Roland slamming Durandal down on Artoria, who parried the blade with Excalibur.

"Master, I will keep my senses open," said Tristan. "It is odd that the other Servant has not appeared, and it is even stranger that the third Servant has disappeared from my senses entirely."

"Yeah," said Ritsuka. "They might be planning a surprise attack. Mashu, keep close to me."

"Understood," said Mashu as she stood back to back with Ritsuka, her shield poised to defend against any threat.

Ritsuka pressed a palm to his head and concentrated. He couldn't sense Darius in the vicinity. He closed his eyes and channeled his undeveloped magical energy, using his Master's abilities to look through Darius's eyes.

He saw a desert stretching far and wide, with a blue sky devoid of any clouds above. The sun beamed, casting the desert sand in an aura of blazing white. Then his gaze was forced down, and he found that Darius was standing atop a gargantuan elephant comprised of the skeletal remains of his Athanaton Ten Thousand. An entire army clamored around the elephant, jabbing and spearing and stabbing with all their might.

The elephant's hide, made of strengthened bones and the metal of weapons and shields, blocked this infinite assault. The army stretched into the horizon, and there seemed to be no end to their number. The soldiers would have climbed atop the elephant were it not for its vicious movements, rearing and charging around, crashing out eruptions of sand as its colossal feet ground soldiers into paste by the dozen.

Ritsuka cut his connection.

"Darius is fighting in Iskandar's reality marble," said Ritsuka to his party aside from Roland, who battled Artoria a distance away. "He won't be done anytime soon, but thankfully Iskandar will be occupied as well."

Tristan stroked his chin. "An one for one trade, then?"

Ritsuka nodded. "There's no point fighting these Servants. I think we can defuse the situation with just words."

"It will be difficult to convince any of these people with words," said Tristan. "They are all hungry for the Grail. Their reasons will be blinded by that relic's allure."

"Maybe, but we have to save our energy for fighting Astaroth," said Ritsuka.

Tristan looked at Roland who had locked blades with Artoria, their holy swords screeching as holy magical energies clashed with each other. "We would be better served ending this fight quickly with overwhelming force."

Ritsuka scanned Tristan's face. The knight's eyes were closed as usual, but Ritsuka didn't need them to read his mood.

"Go ahead and help Roland," said Ritsuka.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I have Mashu to protect me, so don't worry. Give your king a piece of your mind."

Tristan plucked out a cheerful ring on his harp. "Thank you, my Master. I will try to end this quickly."

-BREAK-

Roland touched his cheek. A little gash, just two inches long, bloodied where he'd touched. He looked at his fingers, at the red mixing with the silver of his armor.

"To wound my face is an unforgivable sin," said Roland. "But truly, that you were able to is impressive. You are indeed capable of being one of the Nine Worthies."

Artoria didn't break out of battle stance, her steps small and measured as she pointed Excalibur at Roland. "Your skills as a knight are worthy of praise as well. Though you were not a knight under my rule, you surely would have ranked among the Round Table's respected members."

That was putting it lightly. This man was almost on par with Lancelot. She couldn't afford any mistakes.

Roland took note of Artoria's wariness. "To think that I could keep the King of Knights on guard - it is a marvelous feeling." He tapped Durandal'scrossguard. "O Saint Basil the Great, let your miracle burn."

Artoria poised Excalibur in front of her, ready to parry any attack. She felt pinprick sensations on her neck, and she knew her instincts were telling her to be careful.

Roland's armor combusted, flaring away in wavy white flames that coated his body. The flames trickled from his body to Durandal, encasing the black blade in a fluttering coat of white fire.

"Let us up the pace of this dance!" shouted Roland as he surged forward, his entire body a radiant sheen of white hot fire, like he was an infernal spirit. His long rainbow hair, brightened by the light of the fires, glittered with an iridescence that looked almost like a halo.

Artoria put strength into her legs and channeled her magical energy into an explosive burst. She met Roland's charge with her own, much, much faster one. The ground shattered into two pits where her feet were, and she saw Roland's eyes widen as she closed the distance between them far faster than he had expected. She swung her sword, aiming to gut Roland with the tip of her blade.

Roland watched as Artoria stepped into his guard right in the middle of his own blow. By using her explosive speed, she had caught him in the defenseless moment after he swung his blade but before the steel made contact. He smiled.

"It's not that easy," said Roland. His lower body morphed into flames completely, and Excalibur's tip phased through intangible fire. Meanwhile, he pumped strength into his arms, finishing his two handed downward slice on Artoria.

Artoria was prepared. The single second of surprise another fighter might have had at this development was negated by her instinct. She raised her sword above her head and faced its flat towards Roland's hammering strike. She pushed her free palm under Excalibur's flat, making a powerful barrier to intercept Roland's attack.

Durandal bit into Excalibur's flat with a sonic crash, scattering away loose rubble in the area with a booming gust. Artoria gritted her teeth as she channeled magical energy into her arms and legs. She felt her feet sinking into the earth, splitting apart the hard rock as she struggled to push up against Roland's strength.

With another Prana Burst, she parried Roland's strike, slinging away the paladin and sending him soaring into the air.

"Ow!" said Roland as he shook his arms mid-air. He landed to the ground on his feet without a sound, as even his greaves were made of flames now. "You've got a lot of strength for a body that small."

He covered his mouth and coughed. When he drew his hand away, he saw blood. He flicked it away with disgust.

"So this is your Noble Phantasm," said Atoria. "An explosive burst of power that seems to have a burn out effect."

All she needed to do was stay on the defensive, using her Prana Burst to give her the edge needed to hold out. Then, when Roland ran out of his own magical energy, she could end the fight before he could recover.

"Not all of it," said Roland, as if reading her mind. He dashed forward in a flash of flame and swung his sword at Artoria's right side.

Artoria grounded her stance and parried to her left. Durandal slammed into Excalibur, and she found herself flying through the air, seeing charred earth and trees in a tumbling blur as the wind whistled by her ears. She flipped mid-air and dug her heels in the ground, braking to a stop almost fifty meters away. Her arms rang with pain, but she could handle this amount.

Roland was upon her again, his flaming blade shooting forward in a thrust designed to run through her heart. She lurched to her right, feeling the peerless sword slice through her armor without meeting any resistance.

She stood up again, feeling a burning pain throb at her side where Durandal had marked out a shallow wound. She saw Roland in front of her again, appearing in a dazzling flash. Durandal was sharp enough that it didn't matter how tough her armor was. Knowing this, her armor dissipated into blue particles, and she felt energy surging into her body, invigorating her every muscle.

She kicked the ground and pushed herself back, watching Durandal crash into the earth, its steel super-heating the rock around it into a molten slag. Without her armor and with Prana Burst, she could keep this game of chase up.

"What!?" said Roland as a golden spear crashed in front of him, cutting off his pursuit and detonating like a grenade, blasting him away. He traced the weapon's trajectory, his eyes going upwards until they landed on Gilgamesh. The King of Heroes was seated upon a golden throne that floated in the air. On the throne's armrests were several round jewels reminiscent of buttons, and a translucent yellow barrier surrounding the structure in a sturdy sphere.

"I grow tired of this farce, Saber," said Gilgamesh. "I thought of letting you show your worth, but in the end even this dog is savaging you."

Portals in space appeared around Gilgamesh. If the space around Gilgamesh was a sheen of water, then the portals were droplets, distorting their surrounding space with expanding ripples. From these distortions emerged the handles of various weapons, slowly drawing out from the spacial pinpricks, stopping when most of their blades could be seen, as if beckoning to be pulled out.

"Archer, do not interfere in this duel," said Saber.

Gilgamesh laughed and sat back further on his throne. "How your words amuse me. Duel? This is supposed to be an execution, Saber. I entertained your whims in trying to make it a duel, but now I grow bored of it."

He snapped his fingers, and the weapons around him shot forward, spiraling down at Roland, sound waves and golden energy massing at their tips as chaotic yellow auras.

A furious succession of notes, rapid and energetic like a guitar solo, punched through the air, drowning out the chaotic buzz of combat.

Blades of wind soared above Roland, roaring like planes as they crashed into the rain of Noble Phantasms that Gilgamesh loosed. Each and every note of that fervent solo had been transformed into a hundred-fold barrage of sonic slices that formed a whirling tornado around the weapons, breaking apart some into fragments of dissipating steel while flinging the sturdier ones away into the depths of the forest.

"Good sir! So you've come to join the dance!" said Roland.

Tristan had a satisfied smile on his face as he walked beside Roland, his steps bold and swaggering.

"I thought it rude to intrude on a pas de deux," said Tristan as he flicked back his long red hair with a dainty flair. "But once our golden friend here so rudely broke in, I found it my responsibility to level the dancing floor."

The flames around Roland swirled and convulsed, sparkling like gems as he grinned. "The more the merrier, eh?"

Gilgamesh's laugh twisted into a frown. "Broke in? The King is welcome anywhere, and now I fancy myself welcome to enjoy your deaths, curs."

More weapons emerged from the portals surrounding Gilgamesh.

Artoria looked up at Gilgamesh with a conflicted expression. She sighed, and pointed her sword at Roland and Tristan.

"I would have preferred this battle to be a real fight between knights, but my duty comes before my wants," she said, resigning herself to an extermination over a true duel.

Roland snickered. "How arrogant. You think having your friend up there makes this any less of a 'real' fight?"

Tristan readied his hand over his harp's strings. "It does no good to put duty above your wants, my king." He went down on one knee, poising himself to play another explosion of notes. "The hand learns best when it is burned. I shall show you how following duty over desire to the stubborn end can burn."

With battle declarations made, the two teams of servants started their fight anew.

* * *

AN:

I've noticed that I haven't been inputting a lot of exposition, so I decided that posting sheets at the end of each update would be a good way to fill in. Anyways, here's Roland's sheet (the parts revealed as of now).

Class: Saber

Master: Ritsuka Fujimaru

True Name: Roland

Strength: B

Endurance: A+

Agility: A

Mana: C

Luck: B

NP: A+

Class Skills:

Magic Resistance: A

Riding: A+

Personal Skills:

Battle Continuation: A

Roland's primary trait is his stubborn endurance, which is apparent in both his mind and body. Fatal wounds will not lay him low, and he can continue to fight as long as his body can physically move.

Holy Aegis: B+++

The divine protection and favor offered to Roland throughout his life. Through battles against demons and monsters, through times when he was struck mad and defenseless, through battlefields were countless thousands died, Roland survived, blessed with a protection from the fates above. This skill grants Roland the capability to pass luck checks, resist mental interference, and nullify any attacks or spells that would try to alter his fate in the long run. As such, curses and status effects like poison are useless against him. Triple modifier is present against any attacks from the categories listed above that are from non-Christian sources.

Eternal Arms Mastery: A

Roland was completely unmatched in his lifetime as a paladin. Among his peers, all of whom rank as heroic spirits, he shone far and above. He was the one man army of Charlemagne, defeating any and all that challenged him, brought low only because of maddening love and destructive selfishness.

Noble Phantasm(s):

Durandal

"The Peerless Blade"

Rank: A+

The blessed sword granted to Roland from the heavens. It is called the sharpest sword in existence, and no armor or defenses can defend against its unyielding edge. The blade is also indestructible, incapable of suffering any residual damage or even being used as a broken phantasm.

Its main strengths lie in the miracles within its crossguard.

Blood of St. Basil of Caesarea: A miracle derived from the patron of exorcisms and a staunch opponenent against heresy. This miracle, when activated, enforces upon Roland a fiery aspect of judgement representing the fires from heaven, granting all of his attacks an eroding effect against non-Christian mystery. In this manner, the flames this miracle produces can destroy foreign magecraft and even damage opposing Noble Phantasms. It also grants a rank up to strength, endurance, and agility. These effects are heightened by Roland's second Noble Phantasm.

Hair of St. Denis: Denis is the patron of France, and the name that the military invokes in its battles. He is the rallying point upon which entire armies find strength. The saint himself was a bastion of perseverance, keeping his faith alive even after being decapitated. By invoking this miracle, Roland has St. Denis's abilities transfigured to his being, granting him a rank up to endurance and magic resistance. In addition, his battle continuation becomes EX ranked, allowing him to stay alive even after decapitation. He can also extend any defensive bonuses he experiences towards his allies, albeit as an one time use. These effects can be heightened by Roland's second Noble Phantasm.

Proteus Armure

Rank: D+++

The legendary armor of Hector of Troy, passed down through the generations to Roland. This armor was what Roland had through each and every one of his battles from the start of his adventures to the end of his life. This Noble Phantasm was the trusty beginner's item that Roland faithfully carried with him, and it can be said to be his true Noble Phantasm; one that he cherished and grew himself.

The original abilities of Hector's armor have worn away over the generations, leaving a D rank set of armor that leaves much to be desired. What the armor does have is an infinite potential for growth.

The armor still has the scrappy nature of Hector imbued in it. The great warrior Hector was the prime model of human achievement and also moderation. The man was neither the most skilled nor the most blessed by the gods, but he edged to the top of all of Troy through his own craftiness and wits. By constantly taking any chances he could, seizing every opportunity, and making any potential improvements, Hector built himself up to be better than the fiercesome Achaeans that opposed him.

As a result, the armor has the capacity to grow an affinity to any concept, and also enhance itself based on whatever concept is affixed to it. Even something as mundane as modern tempered steel being welded on to the armor becomes a conceptual improvement, strengthening the armor even if the modern steel is far less durable than it in actuality.

The fact that the armor looks like a glorious suit of silver armor befitting a great knight is because of Roland's wishes to make it appear so, adapting its appearance to his taste

Due to how closely Roland used this armor, it is spiritually tied to him, being part of his saint graph at its core.

Roland can channel the miracles of Durandal into his armor, and by extension to his own body, thus gaining the aspects of the saints held within these miracles. In this way, he becomes something similar to a Phantom, gaining skills and even additional Noble Phantasms from whatever Saint he is invoking that mix with his original skillset.

In the case of Saint Basil, Roland gains Basil's anti-heresy Noble Phantasm that represents the pure flames of heaven that cast out blasphemy. By fusing it with his armor, he becomes the embodiment of heaven's judgement; the swelling flames that swallowed down the enemies of Israel and set alight the path for Moses. Roland, and by extension Durandal, become vessels for heaven's fire to strike down all heretical enemies. In this manner, Roland can make parts of his body intangible as flame. However, St. Basil was known as an ascetic and an ardent worker who slowly destroyed his body with fatigue and hunger in the pursuit of his faith. That self-destructiveness is present in a burning out effect attached to Roland's fusion Noble Phantasm with Basil, which is further exacerbated by the fact that such a fusion is already unstable.


	9. Through Mud

Kariya watched the back of the priest's black frock shrink as Kirei stepped into the depth of the hallway, back into the very edge of Kayneth's bloodthirsty reach. Kirei stopped, standing there and nodding, beckoning for an attack to come.

"Scalp!" shouted Kayneth, pointing at Kirei with tattered white gloves.

Kariya instinctively raised his sword in guard as he saw two black tendrils flick out from the blob, crashing into the hallway's walls as they tried to converge on Kirei in a pincer motion.

Kariya realized now that the hallway was too narrow for the mercury whips to move at full speed. When he was fighting up and close, the whips had mostly free reign to move about, but when trying to reach a target a dozen meters away, such as with Kirei, the whips met sturdy stone walls before flesh.

Even if the priest was slower than Kariya, such a difference in physical capability didn't matter in this terrain. Kariya blinked in wonder as Kirei flipped in the air, dodging the clumsy mercury whips with an almost practiced ease.

The whips, sensing that their attacks failed, slithered back to the blob. Kariya, sword bared, stepped forward, but stopped when Kirei raised a halting hand.

"Recover your strength," said Kirei.

Who did this priest think he was? Granted, Kariya could admit that Kirei was far more skilled than him. But skill didn't matter in the face of overwhelming power and defense, which was what Kayneth's Volumen Hydrargyrum amounted to. To punch through a supernatural defense, you needed a monstrous amount of strength.

Before Kariya could protest, Kirei shot a black key towards Kayneth with an underhand, casual throw that was more like a flick. Despite the lax nature of the throw, the black key still burst forwards like a laser, its trajectory aimed straight at Kayneth's head.

Predictably, the mud blob surrounded Kayneth in a thin film, and the black key bounced off the prana reinforced surface with a sparky clank.

Kariya waved his sword at Kirei. "You see? Fighting at a distance is useless. You need me to break through."

Kirei ignored him and threw another black key, this time with a full twist of his body, like a baseball player's pitch. Even Kariya saw the black key as a silver blur, but he still knew it was pointless.

Kayneth didn't, or rather couldn't react to the hurtling projectile, but Volumen was an automated defense. Once more, the film rose around him, forming a barrier, thicker than before, almost like stone, that sent the black key spinning backwards.

"I see," said Kirei.

Kariya could see that the priest was the very image of composure. The priest's posture was relaxed, his breathing steady, his eyes focused. Kirei performed two throws in quick succession, and Kariya noted how his movements were perfect, trained to the point of being mechanical. The absolute opposite of his own wild and uncontrolled fighting.

The two throws were executed in almost the same motion. The underhanded flick transitioned into an overhead fastball, causing the two black keys to nearly be overlapping by the time they neared Kayneth.

Volumen spread its defenses again, a thin film, thin enough that Kayneth's figure was visible as a murky image behind it, flowing up. The black key tossed with an underhanded throw bounced off the wall, but the overhand black key, which tailed behind the previous projectile with but millimeters worth of distance difference, smashed through the defensive film, shattering it like glass.

The black key punched into Kayneth's heart with a powerful thud, knocking the Magus straight off his feet.

Kariya was speechless.

Kirei put away his remaining black keys in the folds of his frock.

"El-Melloi had a defense that operated automatically," said Kirei, sensing Kariya's confusion. "That I could tell from my black keys, which should have been too fast for El-Melloi to react to."

"How did you break through that thing's defense, though?" asked Kariya.

"Because El-Melloi's defense is automated, he cannot control the strength of his defenses," said Kirei. "If I use a weak throw, a thin barrier forms. If I use a strong throw, a strong barrier forms. But when both strong and weak throws are used consecutively, that automatic defense has no time to alternate between the barriers."

Kirei turned to Kariya.

"Need I explain more?" said Kirei. "Or would you choose to trust me now?"

"That'll do," said Kariya. "Thanks"

For some reason, he felt uncomfortable thanking the priest. There was something about how sure the priest was of himself that made his generosity suspect.

A sudden rustling brought the attention of both men back to the hallway's end. Kayneth was standing again, doddering about as he resumed his haphazard walk. A cross, the black key's handle, jutted out from his chest, trickling mud instead of blood.

A laugh echoed across the hallways like a demented siren. It was an aged cackle with an unnerving chirping lacing it, hybridizing it with an insectoid ring.

"Fools," said the laugh.

Kariya stiffened, his clutch on his blade whitening. "Zouken."

Beside Kayneth, Zouken appeared from shreds of darkness, like an ink blot spreading across thin cloth.

"I see you've made a friend," said Zouken. "Grandpa is so very proud."

Words weren't needed. Kariya surged forward, his sword twitching in blood-thirst. Kirei held him back with a stretched arm.

"Stand back," said Kirei. "We do not know what tricks he is concealing, and it would be a shame for you to die."

Zouken smiled. "I see your friend here has a bit more brains than you."

Kirei narrowed his eyes, his pupils going up and down as he studied Kayneth's zombie-like approach.

"Familiars?" queried Kirei. "Puppeting El-Melloi with your creations?"

"That's half of it, but it wouldn't do me any good to lecture soon to be corpses," said Zouken.

Familiars. Kariya rolled that word in his head, and knew what he had to do.

He pushed past Kirei, into Kayneth's range.

"Scalp"

Familiars meant worms, and worms were under Kariya's dominion now. He didn't know how he would use his divinity's authority, but he had a subtle inkling telling him he could. It was like how you knew where your limbs were in absolute darkness: programmed instinct.

Kariya didn't bother dodging the converging mercury whips. He raised his arms into a guard to protect his head, and the whips slapped onto his arms. Coiled mercury met unspeakably hard carapace with a harsh clack, and the end result was that Kariya had an inch deep gash on each arm, while the mercury whips slunk back in defeat.

Kariya ran before Volumen could prepare another attack, and before Kayneth could say another word, he held out an open palm. Pain blossomed from his hand and threaded all across his body, beating at his nerves and straining his capillaries. Divinity, unused and foreign, surged throughout his body, raising his body temperature to intense levels.

He exhaled, scorching steam wisping from his mouth, and gnashed his teeth together as he tried to keep his consciousness from slipping. He looked at his weapon: his palm. His splayed fingers, armored and tapered like claws, his palm shelled with black like a bug. Enlarged capillaries, tubes of pulsing black, wriggled like worms across his monstrous palm, looking ready to burst. He had his weapon primed, he just needed a trigger.

Zouken stared at him without s smug smile, his beady white eyes confused. Seeing this monster, this tyrant that had lorded over all his life, not in control, Kariya felt a thrill buzz through his veins. He wanted more, and that desire became the trigger.

"Die," said Kariya, loosing an emerald green aura from his palm.

Kayneth's body shuddered like it was a rag fluttering in a tornado. It convulsed, bones shattering and organs pulping as it contorted and twisted in inhuman rotations. Worms, some thin, some fat, began wriggling out of Kayneth, from his ears, his nose, his mouth, his eyes, and his wounds. When all the worms slithered from Kayneth, his body, now a broken and twisted mess, crashed on the floor.

"What? This-" said Zouken before his body split apart into a pile of wriggling worms.

Kariya sunk to his knees, and Volumen, cut off from its owner, splashed into a pile of muddied mercury. The pain faded as quickly as it came, leaving him heaving on the ground. And with the pain, the thrill left, leaving him uncomfortably empty.

Killing Zouken had been too easy, too impersonal. He had done it with a power that felt alien to him. It would have been better to wring the old monster's neck apart with his own hands.

"I underestimated you."

Kariya stood so fast he stumbled.

How was Zouken still alive?

"Looks like that Magus really has made you into a potent weapon," said Zouken, his voice disembodied, like it came from various spots within the walls and ceiling. "To think that he would trick me by giving me this puppet, claiming that it would so easily crush you, when all he wanted was to use you to get rid of me."

Kariya didn't have the patience for this nonsense. Now that Kayneth was dead and Zouken wasn't there in person, he didn't have anything blocking his way into the worm pit, where Sakura was. He shuffled forward, his unleashed divinity still weighing his body down,like he was trying to move prosthetic limbs. His sword point dragged behind him, scratching out a scraping sound.

He was at the door, or the remains of the stone barricade Zouken had called the door, of the worm pit. Just a few steps, and he could take the stairs down to save Sakura.

A gargling from behind startled Kariya, and he whirled backwards, sword pointed, only to see Kayneth stand again.

It couldn't be called Kayneth anymore. It was a mangled human body so bent apart and crushed that mud spouted from dozens of wounds like a fountain piece. Arms and legs twisted and splayed, like a hammer had forcibly shattered the bones, held the doddering corpse standing upright despite a lack of any functioning bones and muscles.

A torn jaw dangled loose from the corpse's mouth, and a lolling tongue spat out a garbled mess of vocalizations that Kariya couldn't make out. But the corpse's eyes, as blue and sharp as ever, still held hate clear and focused.

Kariya would put an end to this miserable mess. He ran his sword clean through the corpse's sternum, running forward and slamming the body into the hallway wall, his sword piercing through the back and embedding into stone behind the corpse.

The mud splattered onto Kariya, and he drew back like he'd burned his hand, leaving the sword staking the body to the wall. He looked at his hand, where a splotch of mud had landed on his wrist. Smoke curled from the blob as it sizzled, eating into the black carapace encasing his hand, liquefying the diamond hard shell into a runny goop.

The burning felt exactly like the feeling when he was struck by the mercury whips, but at several magnitudes higher. The pain was bearable, minimal even, but there was this unnerving sensation of raw burning, of a tingling so potent it felt numbing.

"Well, well" said Zouken. "So there was some truth to that deal. Looks like you might be the first one to go, dear grandson."

"Ahhh-Ahh-Ahh!" shouted the corpse, its loose tongue flapping around in a vain attempt to form words. The corpse moved forwards in spite of the sword nailed in its chest, but stopped when it hit the sword's wide handle. The pause was momentary.

The corpse struggled and pushed, and a squelching crunch popped as it forced its way through the handle. A jagged rectangular space, the shape of the handle, was present on the corpse's chest as it staggered forwards, its arms outstretched to grab Kariya. Kariya could see through the corpse's body through that hole, but that changed when mud spilled from the open wound in an uninhibited torrent, pouring like a waterfall that pooled on the narrow hallway ground, smoking as it melted the stone underneath it.

"Matou Kariya"

Kariya turned to Kirei, who hadn't moved an inch from a dozen meters away.

"Keep the body in place," said Kirei as he unrolled his sleeve, baring a tapestry of Command Seals. "I will exorcise the body."

Kariya looked at his sword, still pinned to the wall. Cutting apart the body would be disastrous, as it would just create more openings for the mud to spill from. But getting in range of the body was also dangerous, especially considering the fact that the mud prevented him from regenerating through normal means.

Kariya stepped back, planning maybe to lure the slow and shambling body around in a chase.

Kirei began chanting, one of his many Command Seals glowing. "I will kill. I will let live. I will harm and heal. None will escape me. None will escape my sight."

Kariya took another step back, before he realized what was behind him. The worm pit, where Sakura was.

He had no options. To save her, he knew he had to make sacrifices. He dashed forward, tackling the living corpse and slamming it back into the wall.

"Be crushed. I welcome those who have grown old and those who have lost. Devote yourself to me, learn from me, and obey me.

Kariya kept the struggling body stuck to the wall and plugged the hole in the body with one of his hands.

"Rest. Do not forget song, do not forget prayer, and do not forget me. I am light and relieve you of all your burdens."

The burning dominated his hand, numbing it entirely.

"Do not pretend. Retribution for forgiveness, betrayal for trust, despair for hope, darkness for light, dark death for the living."

Kariya didn't notice when his hand had melted away, leaving the mud to spill on his stomach, sizzling away his flesh until his intestines, pink and fleshy, pulsed in view. He slammed the body back into the wall with his other hand, keeping the corpse pinned while having his remaining palm cover the mud dispensing wound.

"Relief is in my hands. I will add oil to your sins and leave a mark. Eternal life is given through death."

There was no pain, and that made him shudder. He was used to pain, but this foreign, alien numbness was something repulsive to him.

"Ask for forgiveness here. I, the incarnation, will swear. Kyrie Eleison."

A golden flash, and the mud stopped flowing. Just in time, too, as both of Kariya's hands were gone, leaving steaming stumps covered in runny liquid carapace. The corpse slid to the ground, its eyes rolled into its head.

Kariya sighed in relief, and focused on healing himself. He used Monstrous Strength again, restoring the flesh lost on his stomach and regrowing his hands. He wriggled his fingers to test his new set of hands, and saw that they were more streamlined than before, with glossy, smooth black carapace with fingers that ended in polished and thin claws that looked more like needlepoints. His regrown stomach, though, had the same craggy black armor that his hands used to have.

Kariya walked over to his sword and pulled it out from the wall.

"So, are you going to keep helping me?" asked Kariya, glancing at the fading Command Seal on Kirei's arm.

"As the situation permits," said Kirei flatly.

Zouken's voice came online again. "Well, Kariya, how does it feel to have been a puppet your whole life?"

"Are those your last words?" said Kariya.

"No, they are ours."

Was the old fool going made now that he had lost?

"My main body is too weak to escape," continued Zouken."And that thing will erupt now."

Kariya swiveled around in time to see the corpse explode into an eruption of mud. There was so much mud that it filled the entire hallway, and like a flood, it crashed into Kariya, turning everything black.


End file.
